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JTicttou,  JTact,  aui  fam\)  Scries 

Edited  by  Arthur  Stedman 


DON  FINIMONDONE 


Miction,  Jact,  anlr  Jancg  Scries. 


MERRY  TALES. 

Bv  Mark  Twain. 


THE  GERMAN  EMPEROR  AND  HIS  EASTERN 
NEIGHBORS. 

BV   POULTNEY  BiGELOW. 


SELECTED  POEMS. 

By  Walt  Whitman. 


DON    FINIMONDONE:    CALABRIAN 
SKETCHES. 

By  Eusabeth  Cavazza. 


THE  MASTER  OF  SILENCE :  A  ROMANCE. 
By  Irving  Bacheixer. 

OiAer  Volumes  to  be  Announced. 

Bound  in  Illuminated  Cloth,  each,  75  Cents. 


»%  Far  Sale  by  all  Booksellers,  or  sent  postpaid,  on  re- 
ceipt of  price,  by  the  Publishers, 

OHAS.  L.  WEBSTEE  &  00.,  NEW  YOKE. 


^-^     w 


DON  FINIMONDONE 


(lEalttbrian  Skctcljca 


BY 

ELISABETH  CAVAZZA 


5Cct»  tjork 

CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER  &  CO. 

1892 


Copyright,  1892, 

CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER  &  CO. 

{All  rights  reserved. ) 


PRESS  OF 

Jenkins  &  McCowam, 

NEW    VORK. 


EDITOR'S  NOTE 


Mr.  Hopkinson  Smith — author,  artist,  and  archi- 
tect— in  his  delightful  Day  at  Laguerre's  and  Otiter 
Days,  preaches  a  noteworthy  parable  to  American 
travelers,  among  whom,  indeed,  he  himself  is  preemi- 
nent. For  he  reminds  them  that  while  they  are  search- 
ing foreign  lands  for  the  artistic  and  unusual,  a  charm- 
ing bit  of <^ ranee,  at  least,  may  be  found  at  their  very 
doors,  within  a  brief  walk  of  Manhattan  Island.  No 
doubt  the  comparison  could  be  carried  much  further, 
and  with  advantage  to  the  tourists  who  know  so  little 
of  their  native  land. 

So,  while  a  multitude  of  readers  and  those  who  sui>- 
ply  their  needs  are  ransacking  Europe  for  literary  nov- 
elties— while  French,  Russian,  Norwegian,  Spanish, 
Polish,  and  even  Dutch  writers  are  in  turn  raised  on 
pedestals  to  engage  the  public  attention — it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  some  of  our  own  writers  who  have  depicted 
foreign  life  should  be  for  the  moment  overlooked. 

At  the  mention  of  life  in  Italy,  the  names  of  Haw- 
thorne, Marion  Crawford,  and  Henry  Fuller  come  to 
mind.  They,  however,  have  been  most  successful  in 
their  portrayal  of  the  upper  classes.     To  enter  into  the 


2229132 


vi  editor's  note 

very  soul  of  the  Calabrian  peasant,  to  see  as  he  sees, 
to  think  as  he  thinks,  and  withal  to  capture  the  true 
romance  of  his  condition — these  privileges  have  fallen 
to  the  share  of  the  lady  whose  stories  are  here  given. 

A  native  and  resident  of  Portland,  Maine,  and  be- 
longing to  an  old  New  England  family,  Mrs.  Cavazza 
early  became  interested  in  Italian  life  and  letters;  an 
interest  undoubtedly  increased  by  her  marriage.  It  is 
now  several  years  since  A  Calabrian  Penelope  first 
made  its  appearance  in  The  New  Princeton  Review. 
Readers  of  that  periodical  were  quick  to  catch  the  new 
note  in  our  literature,  and  it  is  not  too  milfch  to  say 
that  their  anticipations  have  been  fulfilled. 

A  dainty  little  patrician  sketch  has  been  added  to 
the  volume  by  way  of  contrast  with  these  pictures  of 
Italian  life  among  the  lowly. 


Acknowlei^ment  is  due  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &^ 
Co.,  for  kind  permission  to  reprint  "A  Trumpet  Call" 
from  "  The  Atlantic  Monthly." 


TO 

JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 

IN  TOKEN   OF 

GRATITUDE  AND  AFFECTIONATE 
RESPECT 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Don  Finimondone 13 

A  Calabrian  Penelope 39 

The  Story  of  Cirillo 65 

The  Tree  of  the  Bride 90 

A  Trumpet  Call 120 

Princess  Humming-Bird 139 


CALABRIAN  SKETCHES 


CALABRIAN  SKETCHES 


DON   FINIMONDONE 

''  I  ^HE  comare  cleaned  with  her  apron  a  place 
-*-  on  the  doorstep,  so  that  the  signora, 
who  came  from  so  far  away,  could  sit  down 
without  soiling  her  dress.  Then  "  With  per- 
mission," said  she,  and  sat  down  herself,  to  tell 
the  story  of  Don  Finimondone. 

It  is  an  ugly  thing  to  keep  Lent  twelve 
months  in  the  year;  but  when  the  olives  are 
scarce,  and  the  sheep,  because  of  the  drought 
that  burns  up  the  pastures,  are  reduced  so  that 
they  are  a  pity  to  see,  and  the  earth  cracks 
between  the  blades  of  buckwheat,  it  is  a  bad 
prospect  for  the  next  carnival.  So  they  found 
it,  when  the  winter  was  over,  and  in  the  village 
they  began  to  think  of  the  coming  carnival 
time.  It  was  not  a  great  city — anything  but 
that — ^yet  it  was  a  town  like  another,  with  a 


14  DON    FINIMONDONE 

church  and  a  priest  and  a  mayor  and  a  piaz- 
zetta,  and  an  honest  people  that  were  not 
heathen,  and  wanted  a  little  carnival  in  honor 
of  their  blessed  faith. 

At  the  inn,  every  evening,  there  gathered  a 
group  of  massari,  massarotti,  the  greater  and 
the  less,  to  arrange  the  ways  and  means  for 
the  celebration  of  the  carnival.  In  the  great 
cities,  where  they  waste  money  by  the  shovel- 
ful, they  have  not  to  spoil  their  brains  with 
thinking  of  every  lira  that  is  spent.  The  com- 
mittee talked  like  so  many  windmills;  and 
those  of  them  who  had  been  to  the  cities  had 
the  best  of  it,  for  they  could  say  what  they  had 
seen  there.  But  all  could  speak  with  reason 
of  the  hard  times  and  the  bad  year,  and  say 
that  little  could  be  done. 

It  might  have  been  that  nothing  was  done 
but  for  compare  Vincenzo,  the  son  of  an  old 
massaro  who  was  reputed  rich  for  those  parts, 
for  he  had  fields,  and  a  house  and  a  stable, 
and  sheep  and  poultry,  and  some  cajisi  of  oil 
that  came  from  the  oliveto,  where  at  noon  the 
trees  made  it  almost  as  dark  as  it  is  at  Ave 


DON    FINIMONDONE  I5 

Maria  in  autumn.  No  one  could  say  that  they 
had  ever  seen  him  spend  two  tari  at  once 
without  making  wry  faces,  as  if  they  had 
pulled  so  many  of  his  teeth.  There  was  only 
one  thing  of  which  he  was  prodigal,  and  that 
was  predictions  of  evil.  He  was  never  content; 
he  would  say  his  say  about  everything,  and 
never  finished  talking;  he  would  dispute  about 
the  shadow  of  a  donkey.  His  family  led  a 
sorry  life,  and  more  than  once  his  wife  wished 
herself  dead. 

Everything,  according  to  him,  was  going  to 
the  bad.  Did  it  rain,  there  would  be  another 
flood  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  and  that  with- 
out the  ark  to  put  two  beasts  in.  Did  the  sun 
shine,  the  grass  was  burning  up,  and  the  geese 
would  die  with  their  mouths  open  for  thirst. 
If  the  olives  were  scarce,  there  would  not  be 
enough  oil  to  fry  the  good  things  of  heaven;  and 
if  it  were  a  good  year,  he  said  that  it  was  a  pity 
to  see  the  branches  loaded  till  they  broke,  and 
olives  so  cheap  that  it  was  indeed  ruin,  it  was. 

From  his  habit  of  foretelling  the  ruin  of 
everything,  he  had  gamed  the  name  of  Don 


l6  DON    FINIMONDONE 

Finimondone;  and  it  is  not  certain  that  he 
would  not  have  had  some  satisfaction  to  see 
the  world  come  to  an  end,  provided  he  could 
have  the  opportunity  to  say  to  the  mayor  and 
people  of  the  village,  "  I  always  told  you  so  !  " 
And  since  the  sun  shone  and  the  rain  fell  in 
their  accustomed  measure,  year  after  year, 
Don  Finimondone  became  more  and  more  dis- 
contented with  the  earth  and  the  heavens.  If 
he  had  been  there  when  the  world  was  made, 
it  would  have  been  a  different  thing  ! 

His  son,  Vincenzo,  was  of  quite  another 
stuff;  he  was  all  his  mother,  good  soul,  that 
sang  when  she  worked,  and  listened  when  her 
husband  scolded,  as  if  he  were  counting  so 
many  beads  of  the  rosary,  and  when  he  beat  her 
she  only  said,  *'  Better  the  hand  than  the  stick." 

If  Vincenzo  had  only  had  his  father's  money 
to  spend  there  would  have  been  a  carnival 
worth  seeing !  But  Vincenzo  was  a  black- 
smith, and,  though  he  had  a  house  and  a  forge, 
and  four  furrows  under  the  sun  to  sow  beans 
and  some  handfuls  of  maize  and  buckwheat, 
he  had  no  more  than  was  needed  to  keep  his 


DON    FINIMONDONE  1/ 

wife  and  children.  Every  year  there  was  an- 
other baby;  and  while  the  grandmother  said, 
"  Another  soul  gained  for  Paradise,"  the  grand- 
father grumbled,  "  Another  mouth  to  eat,  and 
poverty  enough  for  ten."  But  Vincenzo  and 
Mariangela  and  the  children  throve  and  were 
happy.  Cola,  the  biggest  boy,  could  already 
blow  the  bellows  while  his  father  beat  the  hot 
iron;  the  mother,  with  the  baby  on  her  back 
and  the  little  ones  hanging  to  her  skirts  or 
running  beside  her,  sowed  the  field  and  pulled 
up  the  weeds  that  were  choking  the  buck- 
wheat; or,  if  it  were  winter,  spun  and  wove  the 
cloth  to  make  the  garments  of  the  family. 

When  the  carnival  was  at  hand  Vincenzo 
had  had  greater  expenses  than  usual,  for  his 
mule  had  died  when  the  days  were  shortest, 
and  the  earth  was  frozen,  so  that  it  was  hard 
to  dig  the  hole  to  bury  the  poor  beast.  Some 
weeks  later  Vincenzo  had  bought  a  new  mule, 
a  fine  bay;  and  in  honor  of  this  animal  had 
painted  his  cart  a  bright  blue,  with  Sant' 
Antonio,  that  preached  to  the  fishes,  the  large, 
the  middle-sized,  and  the  small,  upon  one  side; 


l8  DON    FINIMONDONE 

and  upon  the  other  were  represented  the  souls 
in  purgatory.  There  was  not  a  finer  cart,  one 
might  wager,  not  even  in  Messina,  where  they 
make  such  beautiful  ones;  and  when  Vincenzo 
had  given  the  last  touch  to  the  red  and  yellow 
flames,  it  seemed  that  one  might  warm  his 
hands  at  them.  And  the  parish  priest,  Don 
Giuseppe,  was  so  pleased  with  the  appearance 
of  the  cart  that  he  said,  when  the  images  of  the 
blessed  saints  in  the  church  should  need  a  new 
coat  of  paint,  Vincenzo  should  give  it  to  them. 
The  first  thing  needful  for  a  carnival  proces- 
sion is  at  least  one  cart,  for  the  masks  to  ride 
in,  and  Vincenzo  offered  his  for  that  purpose. 
They  would  also  have  had  another  cart,  and 
have  trimmed  it  with  green  cloth  and  cotton- 
wool to  represent  the  waves  and  the  foam  of 
the  sea,  with  three  sirens  to  sit  and  sing  in  it, 
that  were  the  daughters  of  compare  Mariano, 
the  sacristan — handsome  figures  of  girls,  with 
long,  long  hair — while  the  blue  cart,  with  a 
mast  and  a  sail  in  it,  should  carry  the  little 
monk  that  stopped  his  ears  with  cotton-wool 
and  tied  himself  with  his  rope  girdle  to  the 


DON    FINIMONDONE  I9 

mast,  and,  blessed  be  the  saints  !  was  deaf  as 
a  bell  for  all  that  the  sirens  sang  so  loud,  and 
so  was  saved.  But  Don  Giuseppe,  the  priest, 
said  that  it  was  not  a  monk,  but,  on  the  con- 
trary, a  pagan;  and  that  they  could  not  have 
the  daughters  of  the  sagrestano,  and  still  less 
his  cart,  that  carried  people  to  the  camposanto, 
for  sirens  are  only  a  profane  fable. 

Finally  it  was  decided  to  have  only  Vincen- 
zo's  cart  and  the  bay  mule;  and,  because  this 
would  cost  nothing  or  little,  the  committee 
should  wear  false  heads  made  of  pumpkins, 
with  holes  for  eyes  and  mouth  and  nostrils, 
and  they  should  ride  in  the  blue  cart  between 
the  pious  fishes  and  the  souls  of  purgatory. 

The  day  before  the  carnival  was  to  begin 
there  were  great  doings  at  the  forge.  Vincen- 
zo  was  shaping  a  new  set  of  shoes  for  the  bay 
mule,  and  compare  Carmenio,  who  was  also 
of  the  committee  of  the  carnival,  blew  the  bel- 
lows until  the  hot  iron  was  red  as  coral.  The 
others  of  the  committee  sat  in  the  doorway, 
over  which  were  nailed  a  horseshoe  and  two 
pieces  of  thin  iron  bent  in  the  form  of  a  pair 


20  DON    FINIMONDONE 

of  horns,  and  between  them,  written  with  char- 
coal, were  the  figures  8  and  9,  so  that  if  the 
witches  should  come — may  they  be  far  from 
us  ! — they  could  not  cross  the  threshold.  Don 
Finimondone  came  along  the  road,  from  the 
sheepfold,  and  stopped  to  look  at  the  bay 
mule,  that  was  tied  by  the  halter  near  the  door 
of  the  forge. 

"  Is  not  that  a  fine  mule  that  your  son 
bought  at  the  fair  .-' "  said  compare  Carmenio. 
"Look  what  legs;  and  he  will  draw  double 
the  load  of  the  other  one." 

"  Say  fora  -fascino  and  benedica!  "  cried 
Vincenzo,  for  fear  of  the  evil  eye. 

But  compare  Carmenio  did  not  hear  him,  as 
he  walked  up  the  road  with  Don  Finimondone, 
to  whom  he  paid  great  court,  because  he  wish- 
ed to  marry  the  daughter,  Filomena,  that  had 
great  black  eyes,  and  a  mattress,  and  a  box  of 
linen  that  she  had  spun  and  woven  for  herself, 
besides  the  little  dowry  that  her  father  would 
give  to  her. 

Whether  it  was  the  witches  that  put  a  hand 
in,  despite  the   horseshoe   over   the   door,  or 


DON    FINIMONDONE  21 

whether  it  was  the  unlucky  praises  spoken  by 
compare  Carmenio,  with  one  thought  for  the 
mule  and  ten  for  Filomena,  who  can  say  ? 
But  the  fact  is,  that  when  Vincenzo  stooped  to 
lift  up  the  hind  foot  of  the  mule  to  shoe  him, 
the  beast  put  him  in  one  of  those  kicks  of 
which  two  would  leave  nothing  for  the  doctor 
to  do,  only  for  the  priest.  Vincenzo  cried  out 
that  the  mule  had  broken  his  bones,  and  he 
fell  to  the  ground  like  a  fig-tree  under  the  axe. 
The  men  took  him  up  gently  and  carried  him 
home  on  their  arms,  while  little  Cola  ran  on 
before  to  tell  his  mamma  that  the  bad  mule 
had  killed  poor  papa.  Mariangela  came  to 
the  door  with  the  great  tears  running  down 
her  face,  that  was  white  as  a  washed  rag. 
"  My  man  !  they  have  killed  my  man  !  "  she 
screamed. 

Behind  her  came  the  mother,  sta  Agnese, 
with  the  corners  of  the  handkerchief  on  her 
head  trembling  as  if  she  had  the  fever.  Vin- 
cenzo said  that  he  was  anything  but  dead — 
though  not  all  the  neighbors  believed  that  he 
spoke   truly.     Then   they  took   him   into   the 


22  DON    FINIMONDONE 

house,  laid  him  upon  the  bed,  and  sent  for  the 
doctor. 

"  But  even  the  doctors  do  not  know  every- 
thing; and  for  all  that  they  write  who  knows 
what  words  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  and  the 
apothecary  reads  it,  and  then  puts  a  little  of  this 
and  of  that  into  a  phial  that  you  pay  for  like 
the  best  wine,  when  the  witches  or  the  evil 
eye  come  into  the  affair,"  said  Mariangela, 
"  there  is  more  than  the  signor  dot  tore  that  is 
wanted." 

So  she  put  a  little  water  and  salt  in  a  dish, 
and  dipped  her  finger  in  it,  and  made  three 
crosses  on  her  husband's  forehead,  and  said 
otto  nove  and  benedica,  to  draw  out  the  evil 
eye,  as  if  it  had  been  a  nail  that  was  stuck  into 
his  foot;  and  poor  Vincenzo  said  he  already 
felt  better. 

"For  it  was  all  my  fault,"  observed  Mari- 
angela;  "  stupid  that  I  am,  I  heedlessly  swept 
the  house  last  evening,  so  as  to  have  every- 
thing ready  for  the  carnival,  and  forgot  to  lay 
the  broom  across  the  doorway." 

Whoever  sweeps  at  night  steals  the  horse  of 


DON    FINIMONDONE  23 

a  witch,  for — as  every  one  knows — they  ride 
on  broomsticks,  and  those  that  lack  the 
broomstick  have  to  walk,  and  are  too  late  to 
dance  the  ridda^  which  makes  them  angry. 

Filomena,  who  had  heard  of  the  misfortune, 
came  in  from  the  field;  and  taking  the  new 
red  tassels  which  she  had  made  for  the  mule, 
to  keep  him  from  the  evil  eye,  she  threw  them 
out  of  the  door  and  said,  "  May  the  devil  come 
to  take  his  own  mule  ! " 

Don  Finimondone  sat  upon  a  bench  by  the 
hearth,  with  his  elbows  resting  on  his  knees, 
his  shoulders  drawn  up  to  his  ears,  and  his 
chin  between  his  palms. 

"  I  said  that  the  bay  mule  would  play  some 
ugly  trick,"  he  repeated. 

The  doctor  came,  and  said  that  for  three 
broken  ribs  one  must  have  patience;  and  he 
wrote  in  his  pocket-book  so  fast  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  see  the  words  crawl  like  flies  over 
the  paper,  and  then  he  tore  out  the  page,  and 
Cola  ran  with  it  to  the  apothecary. 

And  who  would  believe  it !  it  was  not  the 
pain  of  the  broken  bones  that  most  troubled 


24  DON    FINIMONDONE 

Vincenzo;  it  was  the  thought  of  the  carnival 
that  gnawed  his  mind  and  gave  him  no  peace. 
He  turned  this  way  and  that,  as  if  the  bed 
were  full  of  thorns,  and  although,  as  luck 
willed  it,  a  sheep  had  died  the  night  before,  so 
that  his  mother  could  make  him  some  broth, 
he  would  eat  nothing  for  all  that  she  begged 
him,  "My  little  heart,  eat  two  spoonfuls;  it 
will  do  you  good." 

The  thought  of  the  blue  cart  and  the  pump- 
kin heads  tormented  him;  he  had  it  fixed  in 
his  mind,  and  he  ground  it  over  and  over  like 
flour.  Mariangela  offered  to  put  on,  herself, 
the  great  cloak  and  the  pumpkin  head,  and  go 
in  his  place  in  the  cart,  to  pacify  him;  but  he 
would  jiot  hear  of  it. 

*'  Oh,  why  should  you  go  in  the  cart  ? "  said 
he.  "  It  is  of  no  use.  Moreover,  there  is 
witchcraft  in  the  matter,  and  you  would  go  to 
break  your  neck,  besides  doing  an  unsuitable 
thing." 

Then  Vincenzo  would  have  wished  that  com- 
pare Carmenio  should  go  in  the  blue  cart  and 
take  his  place  as  leader  of  the  carnival.      But 


DON    FINIMONDONE  2$ 

Don  Finimondone  said  that  it  should  not  be 
so;  it  was  enough  that  the  mule  had  spoiled 
his  son  for  the  holidays,  without  ruining  the 
cart  and  breaking  the  bones  of  any  other  Chris- 
tians, and  neither  mule  nor  cart  should  go  out 
of  the  stable  the  next  day.  Vincenzo  could 
not  content  himself,  and  Mariangela  cried,  and 
Filomena  scolded,  and  zia  Agnese,  poor  old 
woman,  did  not  know  to  which  saint  to  make 
her  vows,  for  trouble  of  mind.  And  Don  Fini- 
mondone went  into  the  stable,  with  ever  so 
long  a  face  and  in  the  worst  of  humors;  and  he 
drew  the  cart  into  its  place,  and  tied  the  mule 
by  the  halter  to  the  stall,  and  locked  the  stable 
door  upon  the  inside,  and  passed  the  night  in 
the  hayloft.  "  With  women  and  geese  there  is 
no  peace,"  observed  Don  Finimondone. 

At  sunrise  the  next  morning,  which  was  the 
first  day  of  the  carnival,  compare  Carmenio 
betook  himself  to  the  house  of  Don  Finimon- 
done to  ask  for  news  of  his  friend  Vincenzo. 
Filomena  came  down  the  dooryard  with  a 
stick  in  her  hand,  to  drive  the  geese  to  the 
pasture,  that  was  little  better  than  stubble. 


26  DON    FINIMONDONE 

"  Good-day,  comare  Filomena,"  said  Car- 
menio;  "you  are  up  early  to  help  the  sun  to 
light  the  world." 

"  It  is  because  I  must  take  these  little  beasts 
to  the  pasture  that  I  am  here  to  have  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  you,  compare  Carmenio,"  she  re- 
plied. 

"  If  I  were  a  great  gentleman,  comare  Filo- 
mena," went  on  Carmenio,  "you  should  know 
nothing  of  geese  but  the  feathers  in  cushions. 
You  should  have  a  silk  dress  for  every  day  in 
the  week,  and  a  pair  of  gold  ear-rings.  Mean- 
while, here  is  a  handkerchief  that  I  bought  for 
you  at  the  fair." 

Filomena  took  the  scarlet  handkerchief  and 
knotted  it  around  her  neck. 

"  So  many  thanks,  compare  Carmenio,"  said 
she;  "  it  is  a  consolation  to  have  those  who 
care  for  us." 

"  And  if  you  have  more  than  one  who  cares 
for  you,"  observed  compare  Carmenio,  "  it  is 
true  that  I  shall  split  his  head  as  if  it  were 
wood.  If  there  is  another  that  you  prefer  to 
me,  say  so  quickly  and  I  will  go  away.     If  not, 


#  DON    FINIMONDONE  2/ 

I  love  you  from  my  soul,  as  I  have  said,  and  as 
I  will  say  before  the  priest." 

"  There  is  no  one  else,  no,  compare  Carme- 
nio,"  she  answered;  "and  I  have  my  box  of 
linen,  and  a  mattress,  and  some  pennies  of 
dowry." 

The  soft  little  rings  of  black  hair  curled 
around  Filomena's  ears,  and  her  coral  ear- 
rings were  so  red  that  compare  Carmenio  could 
not  contain  himself;  he  wiped  his  mouth  with 
the  back  of  his  hand  and  kissed  Filomena 
under  the  ear.  She  became  as  red  as  the  coral 
ear-rings,  and  said: 

"  We  do  wrong  to  think  of  such  things  when 
my  brother  is  in  so  bad  a  state." 

Carmenio  also  became  very  serious  at  once. 
"  Tell  me,  how  is  Vincenzo  .■*  "  he  asked. 

"  Badly,  badly,"  replied  Filomena.  "  My 
sister-in-law  says  he  did  not  close  his  eyes  all 
night.  The  thought  of  the  carnival  weighs  on 
his  mind  like  so  much  lead.  '  If  it  had  been  a 
little  later,'  he  complains;  '  if  that  mule  would 
have  kept  his  feet  to  himself  until  after  the  car- 
nival, it  would  have  made  me  a  good  penance 


28  DON    FINIMONDONE  * 

for  Lent.'  Poor  thing,  there  he  is  kept  in  bed, 
and  my  father  makes  it  worse  with  his  words." 

"  It  has  been  said  that  in  praising  the  mule, 
benedka,"  said  Carmenio,  "  I  cast  the  evil  eye 
on  compare  Vincenzo.  If  I  believed  that,  I 
could  never  forgive  myself  for  my  heedless- 
ness." 

"  And  who  says  it .''"  asked  Filomena,  indig- 
nant. "  Tell  me  quickly,  for  I  will  scratch  his 
face  with  my  hands  for  speaking  ill  of  you  !  " 

"  It  was — saving  respect — it  was  Don  Fini- 
mondone." 

"  A-ah  !  "  screamed  Filomena,  "  the  spiteful 
old  man !  He  tells  stories  too  big  for  the 
mouth  of  an  oven,  and  he  leads  my  mamma 
the  life  of  a  soul  in  purgatory.  More  than  once 
I  have  been  just  ready  to  put  my  hands  on  him, 
to  see  my  poor,  little,  old  woman  cry.  And 
now  he  speaks  ill  of  you  !  " 

Here  Filomena  sat  down  upon  the  ground, 
threw  her  apron  over  her  head,  and  cried  like 
a  fountain. 

"  See,  comare  Filomena,"  said  Carmenio, 
"  words  are  not  stones.     If  we  love  each  other. 


DON    FINIMONDONE  29 

when  once  we  are  married  we  can  go  to  another 
village,  and  Don  Finimondone  will  no  longer 
come  into  the  matter.  I  have  a  few  lire  laid 
by,  to  buy  the  roof  and  a  little  piece  of  land, 
and  there  is  the  black  donkey,  with  her  colt, 
that,  when  he  is  grown,  will  draw  me  a  cart 
like  a  horse." 

"  That  is  well,"  answered  Filomena,  "  but 
take  care  that  my  father  knows  nothing  of  it. 
The  trouble  is,  we  never  can  say  a  little  word 
to  each  other,  like  honest  people,  for  my  father 
comes  to  disturb  us,  and  says  that  you  come 
buzzing  around  me  like  a  bee  among  the  buck- 
wheat; and  that  when  the  lover  talks  the  spin- 
dle is  silent;  and  that  you  are  a  simpleton  and 
a  good-for-nothing,  and  that  I  am  a  silly  thing 
to  let  myself  be  taken  with  such  airs.  And  now 
you  must  go,  for  I  have  to  attend  to  my  geese." 

"  Good-bye  for  now,"  said  Carmenio;  "  shall 
you  come  into  the  piazzetta  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  she  replied,  "  I  can  come  there,  for 
my  father  has  shut  himself  into  the  stable,  and 
says  he  will  not  come  out  until  the  foolishness 
is  at  an  end." 


30  DON    FINIMONDONE 

And  so  the  lovers  parted;  she  went  about 
her  business  and  he  about  his,  while  the  fresh 
March  wind  that  blows  at  sunrise  lifted  the 
dust  of  the  road  like  a  little  cloud. 

Carmenio  went  to  the  committee  of  the  car- 
nival and  told  them  how  Vincenzo  was,  and 
that  Don  Finimondone  had  said  that  they 
should  not  have  the  bay  mule  and  the  blue 
cart.  Everybody  said  his  say  about  Don  Fini- 
.  mondone,  and  there  was  not  a  dog  that  gave 
him  a  good  word. 

"  Without  Vincenzo  and  the  blue  cart,"  said 
one,  "  we  shall  have  to  do  without  the  good 
and  the  best.  But  so  it  is,  and  we  must  have 
patience." 

Then  was  heard  a  noise  as  of  trotting  hoofs 
that  came  nearer  and  nearer,  and  soon  there 
appeared  the  wicked  mule,  caparisoned  with 
red  cloth,  and  upon  his  back  there  rode  a  hor- 
rid figure,  like  a  man,  but  with  a  dispropor- 
tionate head,  over  which  was  wrapped  a  great 
black  cloak  that  left  to  be  seen  only  the  long 
nose  of  an  ugly  false-face,  and  covered  the 
whole  body  down  as  far  as  the  knees.     The 


DON    FINIMONDONE  3I 

mule  seemed  uneasy,  as  if  he  carried  an  evil 
burden. 

"  I  am  come  to  ride  at  the  head  of  your  pro- 
cession," said  the  black  man. 

The  committee  were  like  stone,  for  fear. 

"  I  was  called  to  come  and  take  my  mule, 
and  here  I  am,"  he  proceeded,  in  a  terrible 
voice,  that  seemed  as  if  he  had  his  head  in  an 
empty  wine-cask. 

There  was  nothing  to  be  done  about  it — the 
procession  must  move.  They  went  through 
the  streets  like  so  many  monks,  they  crossed 
themselves  continually,  and  dared  not  speak 
for  dread  of  the  black  man,  who  might  be,  if 
not  the  devil  himself,  at  least  a  witch,  for,  as  is 
well  known,  witches  can  take  whatever  shape 
they  please.  The  whole  village  was  out  to  see 
the  carnival  procession  pass;  the  infirm  old 
people  had  crawled  out  like  flies  in  the  first 
warm  sunshine  of  spring;  the  women  held 
their  babies  in  their  arms;  the  children  stood 
and  stared  with  their  fingers  in  their  mouths, 
or  hid  their  faces  in  their  mammas'  skirts  for 
fear  of  the   masks,  as  they .  came   near.     Don 


32  DON    FINIMONDONE 

Giuseppe  came  out  of  the  church,  and  waited 
to  see  the  procession. 

Pom! pom! — that  was  the  bass-drum,  beaten 
by  compare  Carmenio,  who  sat,  with  the  others 
of  the  committee,  in  the  cart  of  the  sagrestano 
— for  since  there  were  to  be  no  sirens,  or  other 
heathen,  they  were  permitted  to  have  the  horse 
and  cart  that  were  used  to  go  upon  consecrated 
ground.  And  in  front  of  them  rode  the  black 
man  upon  the  bad  mule. 

Oh!  he  had  an  evil  tongue  that  never  rested, 
and  it  struck  everywhere.  Whoever  had  stolen 
as  much  as  a  handful  of  beans  heard  of  it;  and 
whoever  had  quarreled  with  his  neighbor  got  a 
solemn  reprimand  for  it,  as  if  he  were  before 
the  judge.  To  poor  old  comare  Marta,  who 
lived  by  plain  sewing,  and  whose  son  was  in 
the  prison  for  shooting  a  man,  such  things  were 
said,  because  she  had  brought  up  her  boy  to 
commit  mortal  sin,  that  the  poor  creature  cov- 
ered her  face  with  her  hands,  and  ran  into  her 
house,  all  in  tears.  The  black  man  reproved 
the  sagrestano  for  having  stolen  a  little  piece 
of  candle  from  the  altar  of  the  blessed    sant' 


DON    FINIMONDONE  33 

Antonio,  who  could  very  well  do  without  it,  to 
light  himself  home,  one  stormy  night  when 
there  was  not  a  ray  of  moonlight,  and  whoever 
went  through  the  streets  risked  his  neck,  it 
was  so  dark.  The  women  ran  here  and  there, 
like  hens  when  the  fox  is  outside  the  coop,  for 
the  black  man  blamed  this  one  for  a  bad 
housewife,  and  that  one  for  speaking  ill  of 
her  neighbor,  and  another  for  idleness — and 
there  was  not  a  living  soul  that  dared  to  con- 
tradict him.  He  was  like  a  second  conscience 
— he  stuck  his  nose  in  everywhere  and  had 
no  pity. 

Finally,  he  spoke  to  comare  Filomena,  who 
stood  with  a  group  of  young  girls  in  a  corner 
of  the  piazzetta. 

"  Ah!  even  the  civetta  comes  to  the  snare  at 
last,  according  to  the  proverb;  and  for  all 
your  pursed-up  mouth,  and  your  playing  the 
dead  pussy-cat,  it  is  known  that  you  go  to  the 
threshing-floor  to  talk  in  the  evening  with  Car- 
menio  the  carpenter." 

Every  one  looked  to  see  comare  Filomena 
fall  and  faint  away.     Anything  but  faint  away ! 


34  DON    FINIMONDONE 

She  knew  how  to  give  him  bread  for  his  cake, 
and  answered  him  before  all  the  people: 

'*  Thanks  for  so  many  compliments.  I  am 
used  to  such,  and  worse,  for  when  it  is  a  ques- 
tion of  evil  speaking  my  papa  can  give  points 
to  the  devil.  Go  and  take  lessons  of  him  if  you 
want  to  know  how  the  thing  is  done." 

The  black  man  had  nothing  to  say.  He 
struck  his  mule  and  went  off  at  a  gallop,  and 
those  who  had  gotten  out  of  it  without  blame 
could  laugh  at  the  unlucky  ones.  Some  per- 
sons said  there  was  a  smell  of  sulphur  in  the 
air,  and  Don  Giuseppe  judged  it  prudent  to 
bless  all  the  people  together,  to  make  it  quite 
safe.  There  was  no  more  sport  of  any  kind, 
and  they  all  went  home. 

"  It  will  be  at  least  a  little  consolation  to 
Vincenzo,"  observed  Carmenio,  "  that  if  the 
festa  had  to  end  badly,  he  was  not  there  to 
see  it." 

That  same  evening  he  went  to  see  his  friend 
Vincenzo,  to  tell  him  how  things  had  gone. 
Zia  Agnese  opened  the  door  for  him.  "We 
are  unfortunate,"  she  said  to  him;   "my  hus- 


DON    FINIMONDONE  35 

band  would  not  listen  to  reason,  and  this 
afternoon  he  came  out  of  the  stable,  leading 
the  bay  mule  by  the  halter,  and  then  he  sold 
him  for  twenty  lire  less  than  my  son  paid  for 
him  fifteen  days  ago." 

"That  mule  eats  up  money  like  grain,"  add- 
ed Don  Finimondone,  from  the  corner  of  the 
hearth,  where  he  sat  upon  a  bench;  "he  has 
made  us  lose  twenty  lire,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
broken  bones  and  the  doctor's  bill.  A  world 
of  trouble,  say  I." 

"  It  was  a  sorry  sight,  the  procession,"  said 
Carmenio,  by  way  of  changing  the  subject. 
"Every  one  was  like  stone  for  fear  of  the 
witch,  except  my  brave  Filomena.  Whoever 
got  a  reproof  swallowed  it  in  holy  peace;  but 
Filomena  was  as  shrewd  as  the  devil  himself, 
and  gave  him  an  answer  that  was  suited  as 
cheese  to  macaroni.  '  Grazie  tante,'  says 
she—" 

"  A-ah,  the  evil  tongue  that  she  has  in  her 
mouth,"  interrupted  Don  Finimondone,  "to 
tell  me,  before  all  the  people,  that  I  am  worse 
than  the  devil ! " 


36  DON    FINIMONDONE 

"  You  ! "  they  exclaimed  in  chorus. 

"  I  knew  very  well  that  it  was  my  papa,"  re- 
marked Filomena;  "witch  or  not,  there  were 
the  very  same  patches  on  the  knees  of  his 
trousers  that  I  sewed  with  my  own  hands  last 
Sunday  to  make  him  decent  to  go  to  hear 
mass.  And  if  I  have  talked  at  the  threshing- 
floor  with  compare  Carmenio,  it  is  because  I 
shall  marry  him  in  another  month,  and  in  this 
house  one  cannot  say  two  words  in  peace.  If 
you  give  me  my  cassa  of  linen  and  the  mat- 
tress, I  will  go  away  without  one  tari  of 
dowry." 

"  And  I  will  take  her  without  anything  in 
her  hands,"  said  Carmenio. 

"  Have  you  no  fear  of  her  tongue  .■*  "  asked 
Don  Finimondone.  "When  you  bring  her 
back  to  me  and  say,  '  Take  your  daughter,  for 
there  is  no  living  with  her,'  I  will  shut  the 
door  in  her  face,  and  leave  her  in  the  middle 
of  the  road." 

"  He  who  has  a  log  can  have  chips,"  ob- 
served Vincenzo,  from  his  bed;  "and  if  my 
sister  knows   how   to   open    her   mouth  upon 


DON    FINIMONDONE  37 

occasion,  it  is  because  she  is  the  daughter  of 
her  father." 

"  As  for  me,"  said  zia  Agnese,  "  I  don't  com- 
plain of  my  daughter  Filomena;  she  is  a  good 
girl,  and  sweeps  the  house  for  me,  and  kneads 
the  bread  and  tends  the  poultry,  and  sews  and 
spins  with  a  good  will.  And  with  a  good  man 
she  will  be  a  good  wife." 

"  And  I  shall  be  a  good  man  to  her,  I  shall," 
promised  compare  Carmenio,  and  meant  what 
he  said. 

"When  she  has  the  cares  of  a  house,"  said 
comare  Mariangela,  "you  will  see  that  she 
will  not  talk  so  much.  When  hens  have  to 
live  by  scratching  they  have  no  time  to  peck 
each  other,  and  you  will  find  her  good  and 
gentle  enough.  And  you  can  see,  from  Vin- 
cenzo  and  me,  how  two  that  love  each  other 
can  live  on  little  and  be  content." 

"  And  I  tell  you  plainly,  once  for  all,"  said 
Carmenio,  "that  I  shall  marry  your  daughter; 
and  if  you  forbid  the  marriage  I  will  speak, 
and  let  the  whole  town  know  that  it  was  you 
who  spoiled  the  festa,  so  that  it  was  like  a 


38  DON    FINIMONDONE 

penance — you,  that  made  Lent  of  our  car- 
nival." 

And,  therefore,  rather  than  have  the  story 
told  to  all  the  people,  Don  Finimondone  con- 
sented that  Filomena  should  marry  compare 
Carmenio,  and  even  gave  him  the  dowry,  so 
many  heads  of  the  king,  counted  into  his 
hands. 

"  You  will  repent  your  marriage,  compare 
Carmenio,  you  will  repent  it,"  prophesied  Don 
Finimondone,  "but  you  will  still  have  the  con- 
solation of  the  money." 

"  And  were  they  happy  together,  Filomena 
and  Carmenio  .■*  "  asked  the  signora. 

"  Oh !  cava  signora,  who  can  tell .''  They 
had  their  troubles,  like  the  rest  of  the  world, 
but  they  never  have  ceased  to  love  each  other, 
and  they  are  content.  There  comes  old  Car- 
menio now,  from  his  work  in  the  field." 

"  And  how  did  you  know  so  much  about 
it }  "  pursued  the  signora. 

*'  Eh !     I  was  Filomena ! " 


A  CALABRIAN    PENELOPE 

'  I  ^HE  fields  were  dry,  and  cracks  ran  across 
■'-  the  furrows  that  were  like  parched  lips 
open  from  thirst.  Clouds  arose  and  crossed 
the  face  of  the  sun  shining  yellow  and  hot  in 
the  middle  of  the  sky;  they  looked  upon  the 
suffering  earth  and  then  passed  by  without 
pity,  giving  no  drink  to  the  sown  fields  that 
languished  in  the  drought.  Far  away,  down 
among  the  marshes,  hung  a  thick  steam;  but 
here,  on  the  hills,  everything  was  dry  and 
baked.  The  grain,  not  yet  ripe,  was  yellow  as 
if  it  had  the  fever. 

Along  the  edge  of  the  field  ran  a  row  of  In- 
dian fig-trees;  and  in  the  shadow  of  one  of  them 
sat  compare  Andrea,  with  Pina,  his  wife.  They 
had  left  the  house  at  dawn,  and  gone  to  their 
work  in  the  field,  where,  kneeling  between  the 
furrows,  they  pulled  up  the  weeds  that  grew 
faster  than  the  grain  and  struck  deep  roots,  as 

39 


40  A   CALABRIAN    PENELOPE 

ill  weeds  will,  to  rob  the  good  grain  of  what 
little  it  might  have  gotten  from  the  earth.  In 
the  heat  of  the  noon  hour  even  the  little  brown 
tomtits,  that  hop  from  furrow  to  furrow  for  the 
worms  which  come  out  with  the  uprooted 
weeds,  had  ceased  to  move  and  chirp,  and  were 
hidden  in  their  nests  in  the  hedge.  The  crick- 
ets, even,  were  silent;  now  and  then  one  of 
them  showed  his  black  body  and  thin,  bent 
legs  among  the  dry  blades  of  the  scanty  grass. 
The  pretty  little  green  lizards  slept  under  the 
edges  of  a  flat  stone,  or  moved  languidly 
across  it  to  find  a  cooler  spot.  The  odors  of 
rosemary,  thyme,  and  a  thousand  other  herbs 
were  drawn  out  by  the  hot  sun. 

Compare  Andrea  sliced  with  his  clasp-knife 
the  piece  of  black  bread  and  the />ace  di  casa — 
the  small,  slender  squash  that  is  called  "house- 
hold peace,"  because  when  there  is  enough  of  it 
for  the  family  meal  there  is  peace  in  the  house; 
if  not,  this  good  gift  of  Heaven  is  better  than  a 
stick  to  enforce  peace,  and  is  always  at  hand 
to  be  thrown  across  the  table  in  the  face  of  any 
one  who  speaks  inconveniently. 


A  CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  4I 

While  Andrea  and  Pina  were  eating,  they 
talked  of  the  bad  year  they  were  having. 

"So  it  is;  in  this  field  we  sow  our  life  and 
we  reap  ruin,"  complained  Andrea. 

"The  blades  of  grain  seem  to  me  like  so 
many  of  my  children,  and  I  can  do  nothing  for 
them,"  responded  Pina,  with  two  great  tears  in 
her  eyes.  "  The  grain  dies  in  our  sight,  and 
the  ill  weeds  come  to  make  its  funeral." 

"  It  is  like  ourselves,"  said  her  husband, 
knitting  his  brows;  "we  are  poor  and  barely 
live;  and  there  comes  the  galantuomoy  who 
buys  and  sells  us  like  the  land  and  the  beasts 
that  he  owns.  He  lives  like  the  sun  in  the  sky 
with  one  hand  in  the  other;  he  does  no  work, 
and  takes  everything.  If  it  is  a  good  year, 
there  is  always  something  to  pay;  if  it  is  a  bad 
year,  it  is  we  who  must  bear  the  expenses  of 
it,  as  if  it  were  our  fault.  *  Pay,  pay !  *  says  the 
agent  of  the  galantuonio,  and  he  opens  his 
great  books  with  the  rows  of  figures  fit  to  give 
you  an  apoplexy  to  see  them,  and  here  is  your 
name,  and  this  is  due,  and  that  other,  and  you 
tear  your  hair  in  vain.     And  if  you  make  a  bad 


42  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

face  at  it,  a  reprimand;  and  if  you  have  no 
money,  the  judge  orders  a  pignoravietito,  and 
an  officer  comes  to  take  all  your  goods;  and  if 
you  put  your  hands  on  the  officers  of  justice, 
there  is  the  prison.  They  are  all  brigands. 
It  appears  to  me  that  it  is  better  to  be  the  weed 
than  the  grain,  and  get  what  one  can.  For 
my  part,  I  shall  turn  brigand,  I !" 

At  this  saying  Pina  started.  "  Brigand  !  no, 
do  not  say  it,"  she  begged  him.  "We  are 
honest  people  that  have  never  done  harm  to 
our  neighbors.  If  you  turn  brigand,  when 
your  hour  comes  you  will  leave  me  to  weep  for 
an  excommunicated  man — and  from  the  heat 
of  to-day  you  can  judge  if  it  is  hot  down 
there." 

Compare  Andrea  was  silent.  Pina  plucked 
some  withered  sprays  of  mint,  and  crumbled 
the  dry  leaves  between  her  fingers,  while  she 
watched  him  with  a  sidelong  gaze. 

"Swear  to  me  that  you  will  think  no  more 
of  brigands,"  urged  Pina.  She  wiped  the  tears 
from  her  burning  cheeks  with  the  hem  of  her 
cotton  gown,  which  was  turned  up  over  her 


A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  43 

petticoat  so  as  not  to  spoil  it  while  she  was 
at  work.  "  Swear  it  to  me,  Andrea.  The 
carabineers  would  make  a  mark  of  you,  and 
then—" 

Pina  covered  her  face  with  her  hands  and 
sobbed.  A  tinkle  of  small  bells  was  heard 
from  the  slope  of  the  hill,  and  soon  Fra  Gia- 
como,  he  that  went  about  to  collect  alms, 
came  riding  along  the  dusty  road  on  his  stout, 
black  mule.  The  Franciscan  friar  was  stout 
himself;  he  smiled  with  a  good-natured  air, 
and  asked: 

"How  much  do  you  give  me  for  the  good  of 
your  soul,  compare  Andrea  .■' " 

"Oh!  as  for  the  soul,  then,"  replied  Andrea, 
"  rather  tell  me,  reverendo,  how  to  keep  one 
inside  the  body  in  the  bad  year  we  are  having." 

"  There  are  always  some  pence  for  the  Holy 
Church  and  the  repose  of  the  souls  of  your 
dead,"  urged  Fra  Giacomo.  "  If  you  give  me 
a  little,  I  shall  pray  for  rain  upon  your  land;  if 
not,  the  will  of  Heaven  be  done." 

"  If  you  had  spoken  a  little  word  to  the 
blessed  saints  four  weeks  ago,"  said  Andrea, 


44  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

"  it  would  have  been  a  fine  thing,  for  then  every 
drop  of  rain  was  worth  so  much  gold." 

"  Give  him  something,  give,"  recommended 
Pina,  pulling  her  husband  by  the  sleeve. 

"For  the  Church,  my  brother,"  added  Fra 
Giacomo. 

Andrea  took  two  copper  coins  from  his 
pocket,  and  put  them  into  the  hand  of  the  friar, 
who  played  the  deaf  man  in  order  not  to  hear 
"Holy  brigand  !" muttered  over  the  offering. 
Then  Fra  Giacomo  gave  his  blessing  to  compare 
Andrea  and  his  wife,  turned  the  mule  about, 
and  set  off  at  a  careful  pace  down  the  road. 

"  Brigands  here,  brigands  there,"  said  An- 
drea; "  I  tell  you  the  truth,  I  will  not  lead  this 
life  any  longer.  And  this  blessed  day  I  shall 
push  into  the  macchia;  the  trees  are  thick  be- 
yond there  in  the  forest  of  La  Sila;  and  if  the 
guards  find  me,  you  know  whether  I,  too,  am 
a  sharp-shooter.  A  chi  tocca,  tocca,  he  whose 
hour  is  come,  will  fall." 

"  If  you  care  no  longer  for  me  or  for  our 
children,"  said  Pina,  "  is  there  no  other  way  to 
forsake  us  than  to  become  a  brigand  ? " 


A  CALABRIAN  PENELOPE  45 

"  I  shall  not  forsake  you  so,  no,"  replied 
Andrea.  "You  shall  come  with  me.  There 
is  a  place  in  the  forest  where  from  the  mount- 
ain ridge  one  looks  upon  both  seas.  The 
rocks  there  are  like  a  dijesa  built  by  masons. 
We  can  make  our  home  there;  and  when  the 
galantiiomini  shall  come  near,  upon  the  road, 
in  their  fine  carriages,  with  their  pockets  full 
of  the  money  which  we  have  taken  out  of  the 
earth  for  them  with  our  hands,  for  which  we 
have  risked  our  skins  in  the  forest  or  sucked 
the  poison  of  the  marshes — then  we  will  take 
back  our  own.     What  do  you  say  to  that } " 

"  I  will  not  hear  of  it,"  Pina  answered,  stead- 
ily. "Listen,  Andrea:  when  we  come  to  die 
we  could  not  enjoy  a  Christian  end.  The 
priest  would  not  bring  the  blessed  oil  nor  light 
a  candle  in  the  house  of  a  brigand." 

*•  So  much  the  better,"  said  Andrea.  "When 
my  uncle  was  shot  at  night,  in  the  piazzetta — 
for  the  affair  of  the  stolen  goat  that  you  know  of 
— Don  Serafino  put  his  head  out  of  the  window 
as  we  knocked  at  his  door.  There  on  the 
stones  lay  my  uncle  in  a  pool  of  blood,  and 


46  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

the  goat,  with  its  fore-feet  tied  together,  still 
hanging  across  his  shoulder.  '  Help !  help ! 
reverendo!'  we  cried;  'here  is  zio  Menico  dy- 
ing!' 'It  rains  by  basinfuls,  my  sons,'  says 
Don  Serafino  to  us;  'I  take  on  my  own  con- 
science the  sins  of  that  dying  man,  I  take 
them.'  And  he  shut  the  window  as  if  it  had 
been  the  gate  of  Paradise,  and  went  back  to 
his  bed  to  stretch  his  arms  and  legs  and  get 
warm,  while  poor  uncle  grew  cold.  Brigand 
of  a  Don  Serafino,  that  would  rob  us  in  this 
world  and  the  next  !  " 

Comare  Pina  was  discouraged  and  made  no 
reply.  The  shadow  of  the  Indian  fig-tree  be- 
neath which  they  were  sitting  now  began  to 
fall  across  the  large  cracked  stone  where  there 
were  so  many  lizards,  proving  that  the  hour  of 
noon  was  past.  Andrea  put  back  in  his  pocket 
the  clay  pipe  which  he  had  not  thought  to  light, 
and  took  up  his  spade.  Pina  also  arose,  knelt 
between  the  furrows,  and  began  to  tear  up  the 
weeds  as  if  each  one  of  them  had  been  an  ene- 
my. The  locusts  sang  anew  their  canticle  in 
praise  of  the  sun;  the  lizards  came  forth  and 


A  CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  47 

glided  about,  graceful  as  ladies;  the  tomtits 
hopped  here  and  there,  shaking  their  imperti- 
nent little  tails,  and  took  the  worms  almost 
from  under  the  hands  that  uprooted  the  weeds. 
When  the  twilight  came  Andrea  and  his  wife 
went  to  their  house.  They  had  worked  on, 
speaking  very  little;  but  compare  Andrea  had 
been  turning  over  and  over  in  his  mind  the 
thoughts  that  filled  it,  like  heavy  mill-stones 
with  nothing  between  them  to  grind.  He  had 
observed,  among  the  weeds  and  soil,  Pina's 
hands  stained  and  spread  with  hard  work,  and 
how  the  wedding-ring,  that  scarcely  could  have 
slipped  over  the  joints  of  her  finger,  shone 
against  the  dark  earth  of  the  furrows.  Then 
the  memory  of  the  time  had  come  back  to  him 
when  comare  Pina,  beautiful  with  her  sixteen 
years,  used  to  pass  by  the  field  where  he  tended 
a  flock  of  goats.  She  wore  her  holiday  clothes 
— a  red  skirt,  a  dark  jacket  with  ever  so  many 
bright  metal  buttons,  an  apron  of  stamped 
Cosenza  leather  tied  with  ribbons;  a  white 
linen  tovagliolo  covered  the  black  braids  of 
her  hair,  and  in  her  ears  were  great  hoops  of 


48  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

gold  hung  with  tinkHng  balls.  She  carried  in 
her  hand  a  knotted  kerchief  full  of  tomatoes  or 
Indian  figs — on  the  way,  she  explained,  to  visit 
her  grandmother,  who  lived,  however,  in  the 
opposite  direction.  But,  as  she  further  ex- 
plained, to  reach  the  house  of  the  nonna,  one 
must  cross  the  pasture  where  compare  Santo, 
the  mandrtano,  kept  his  cattle. 

"  And  of  bovine  beasts,"  she  would  say, 
"you  know  if  I  am  afraid  of  them,  compare 
Andrea." 

It  was  on  one  of  these  occasions  that  she  had 
promised  to  marry  Andrea.  He  had  been 
gathering  wild  asparagus  when  she  came  near, 
and  his  hands  were  soiled,  so  he  cleaned  them 
on  the  sides  of  his  trousers  before  he  took  Pina 
in  his  arms  and  kissed  her.  Then  they  sat 
down  on  the  grass  together  and  ate  all  the 
Indian  figs  that  were  in  her  kerchief,  with  no 
thought  of  the  nonna  ;  and  he  tied  around  her 
throat  the  little  heart  of  filigree  gold  on  a  blue 
ribbon,  which  he  had  bought  for  her  in  the  city 
of  Cosenza,  when  he  went  there  to  sell  some 
goats;  and  which  he  had  carried  in  his  pocket 


A  CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  49 

until  the  right  occasion  should  come  for  mak- 
ing her  a  present  of  it. 

"  Pina,"  at  last  said  Andrea,  "you  know 
whether  from  my  soul  I  care  for  you  and  for 
our  children.  But  this  life  makes  me  die.  I 
met  compare  Santo  on  the  road  last  evening. 
He  seemed  in  great  good  humor.  He  told  me 
that  he  was  tired  of  eating  black  bread  and 
wearing  sheepskin  breeches,  and  has  decided 
to  sail  next  week  with  a  ship  that  goes  from 
the  port  of  Messina  over  to  America,  where 
they  gather  money  like  strawberries.  There 
are  great  virgin  forests  there,  and  mines  of  gold 
and  of  silver,  and  endless  herds  of  cattle  and 
sheep,  and  all  the  people  are  galantiiomini,  and 
no  one  lacks  the  good  gifts  of  Heaven.  I  shall 
go  to  America  with  compare  Santo;  and  when 
I  have  put  together  a  great  heap  of  money,  I 
shall  come  back  to  take  you  and  our  children 
over  with  me.  Shall  I  go  to  America,  Pina 
miaf' 

"Yes,"  she  answered;  "since  you  love  us 
like  that,  Andrea,  you  shall  go  wherever  it 
appears  pleasing  to  you.     The  sky  stands  over 


50  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

America  as  here;  and  if  you  do  no  wrong,  you 
will  get  no  harm.  Rather,  you  will  be  nearer  to 
my  heart  there,  an  honest  man,  than  a  brigand 
here  at  my  side.  Meanwhile,  I  shall  wait  for 
you  in  our  house  with  our  children  ;  and  when 
I  no  longer  have  work  in  the  seed-field,  I  can 
put  my  hands  to  the  loom,  I  can  do  white  sew- 
ing, or  wash  clothes,  to  support  the  children 
and  keep  them  out  of  the  middle  of  the  road." 

"  Always  the  galantiiojnini  who  ruin  us," 
grumbled  Andrea.  "  They  rob  us  of  our  labor 
and  our  life,  and  drive  us  from  our  families  and 
our  houses." 

Who  could  count  the  tears  that  comare  Pina 
shed  during  the  night  before  Andrea  went 
away  .-'  It  would  be  like  counting  the  drops  of 
a  river.  But  in  the  morning  no  trace  of  them 
was  left  upon  her  face,  bronzed  and  hardened 
by  the  wind  and  the  sun.  She  made  up  a  pack- 
age of  her  husband's  best  clothes,  and  let  him 
go.  She  watched  him  on  the  road  until  sight 
could  follow  him  no  longer,  and  then  returned 
slowly  into  the  house,  searching  in  her  mind 
for  a  little  comfort.      He   would    send  her  a 


A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  5I 

letter  from  Messina,  where  there  are  expert 
scrivafti  that  know  how  to  say  everything  with 
the  pen  before  you  have  the  words  out  of  your 
mouth,  or  even  in  your  mind.  Andrea  would 
send  her  a  letter,  one  of  those  fine  ones. 

Meanwhile,  her  husband  walked  on,  in  com- 
pany with  compare  Santo,  who  had  joined  him 
at  the  turn  of  the  road ;  and  singing  as  he  went, 
to  drive  away  the  sad  thoughts  that  disturbed 
his  mind,  one  of  the  bitter  songs  of  the  Cala- 
brian  people  : 

"  O  my  bad  case  !    Where  is  the  field  I  have  sown, 

The  field  between  two  mountain  streams  that  lay? 
I  sowed  good  grain,  and  gatliered  grief  alone; 

My  wheat,  in  threshing,  flew  like  flies  away. 
To  buy  my  field,  a  rich  man  came  from  town; 

No  money,  only  buffets,  did  he  pay. 
I  went  to  court,  to  make  my  grievance  known — 

The  captain  took  me  off  to  prison  that  day." 

The  promised  letter  came  from  Messina  in 
due  time.  The  scrivano  understood  his  busi- 
ness, and  earned  his  two  soldi.  He  did  not 
spare  fine  expressions;  he  added,  to  the  spon- 
taneous words  of  affection  that  compare  An- 
drea   sent  to  his    dear   ones,  the   information 


52  A  CALABRIAN  PENELOPE 

that  the  traveler,  crossing  from  Calabria  to 
Messina,  had  passed  in  safety  the  tremendous 
perils  of  the  ancient  Scylla  and  Charybdis. 
He  said  nothing  of  sirens,  however,  so  it  may 
be  hoped  that  the  good  Andrea  met  none. 
And  to  the  signature,  with  magnificent  flour- 
ishes, worth  by  itself  the  two  soldi,  compare 
Andrea  set  his  brave  cross,  in  black  on  white, 
with  a  good  pen. 

Comare  Pina,  left  alone  with  her  children, 
gave  up  the  field,  stayed  in  the  house,  and 
earned  what  little  she  could  by  white  sewing 
and  by  weaving  the  beautiful  cloth  in  ara- 
besques, which  is  the  art  of  some  of  the  Cala- 
brian  women.  The  children,  also,  did  what 
they  were  able  to  do;  the  little  girls  could 
jweep  the  house,  and  clean  the  rice,  or  knead 
the  bread,  and  the  boy  could  shoot  with  his  bow 
and  arrows  the  small  game  which  abounded  in 
the  macchia.  He,  with  his  little  sisters,  also 
planted  beans  and  tomatoes  in  a  small  three- 
cornered  piece  of  ground  behind  the  house,  and 
cared  for  the  pig,  the  goat,  and  the  half-dozen 
hens. 


A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  53 

As  soon  as  compare  Andrea  set  foot  on  the 
new  continent,  he  had  a  letter  written  to  Pina. 
The  country  was  called  Argentina,  he  said, 
and,  no  doubt,  there  was  silver  for  everybody. 
After  that,  comare  Pina  received  no  more  let- 
ters from  him. 

When  a  year  had  passed,  bad  news  reached 
the  village  concerning  compare  Santo,  the 
herdsman  who  went  away  with  Andrea.  He 
was  dead  in  America,  of  yellow  fever,  he  and 
several  other  Italians,  his  companions.  Of 
these,  said  the  letter  written  to  the  parish  priest 
of  the  village,  one  only  remained  unrecognized, 
since  he  had  no  papers  by  which  his  name  and 
country  could  be  proved,  but  he  was  believed 
to  be  of  Calabria. 

The  good  priest,  successor  to  Don  Serafino, 
was  made  of  very  different  stuff  from  that  un- 
worthy, who  ate  his  bread  perfidiously  without 
caring  for  the  souls  of  his  parish.  Hardly  was 
the  letter  read  before  Don  Geremia  mounted 
his  mule  and  betook  himself  to  visit  the  poor 
Pina.  The  comari  of  the  neighborhood,  who 
had  heard  from  the  sister  of  the  curate  some 


54  A   CALABRIAN    PENELOPE 

word  of  the  misfortune  of  compare  Santo,  had 
gathered  at  Pina's  house,  from  motives  of  good 
will  mixed  with  curiosity.  Don  Geremia  let 
Pina  know,  as  gently  as  he  could,  the  sad  sus- 
picion of  the  death  of  Andrea.  When  he  had 
finished  speaking,  the  women  began  to  shriek 
and  tear  their  hair.  Pina  alone  remained  as  if 
she  were  made  of  stone. 

"  Courage,  my  daughter,  and  patience,"  rec- 
ommended Don  Geremia,  placing  his  hand 
gently  on  her  shoulder. 

Pina  turned  suddenly  toward  him.  "And 
why  not,  signor  curatof  she  said.  "I  can 
have  courage,  for  I  know  that  my  man  will 
come  back.  He  promised  it  to  me.  And  as 
for  patience,  I  have  had  it  a  whole  year — I 
have  had  it !  " 

She  would  never  admit  a  doubt  of  Andrea's 
return,  nor  let  any  one  speak  of  him  as  dead, 
although  after  a  little  time  she  chose,  for  re- 
spect, to  put  on  mourning  for  him,  by  wearing, 
as  is  the  custom  of  the  place,  all  her  husband's 
waistcoats,  one  upon  the  other,  over  her  dress, 
until  they  were  worn  out  and   fell  into  rags. 


A   CALABRIAN    PENELOPE  55 

But  she  firmly  maintained  that  Andrea  would, 
some  time,  surely  come  back  to  her. 

**  I  do  not  believe,"  she  said,  "  that  such  evil 
has  happened.  One  day,  indeed,  I  felt  myself 
adocchiata,  and  went  to  zia  Agata,  the  wise 
woman,  to  have  the  evil  eye  taken  away  from 
me.  It  may  have  been  too  late — what  do  I 
know  }  She  put  the  salt  and  water  on  my  face, 
made  the  sign  of  the  cross,  and  said  the  verses; 
and  I  yawned  and  yawned  fit  to  unhinge  my 
jaw,  so  that  it  was  a  pleasure  to  see.  It  is 
therefore  certain  that  there  was  the  witchcraft. 
But  what  magaria  !  All  that  came  of  it  was 
that  a  hen  died  the  same  night  and  my  daugh- 
ter broke  a  dish.  That  was  enough,  but  it  was 
not  for  Andrea." 

Meanwile  there  were  not  lacking  those  who 
wished  to  marry  Pina,  seeing  her  so  courageous 
and  with  two  fingers'  breadth  more  of  brain 
than  most  women  have.  Among  them  was 
compare  Giuseppe,  who  owned  not  only  his 
house  and  lands  and  a  discreet  number  of  cat- 
tle, but  also  the  dowries  of  the  three  wives 
that  he  had  buried. 


56  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

"  So  many  thanks,"  said  Pina  to  him,  "  but  I 
must  care  for  my  soul  before  I  am  ready  to 
leave  this  world,  and  even  then  you  would 
have  the  embarrassment  of  choosing  a  fifth 
woman." 

The  agent  of  the  baron,  who  had  moustaches 
like  those  of  a  cat,  wished  to  take  her  with  him 
to  the  city;  and  compare  Gianni,  a  well-to-do 
massaro,  would  willingly  have  married  her  and 
assumed  the  support  of  her  four  children — so 
much  did  he  esteem  her — for  she  was  good  as 
bread,  a  woman  that  worked  all  day  and  wast- 
ed nothing,  not  even  an  onion-top;  was  never 
of  cost  to  her  man,  and  so  neat  that — as  the 
saying  is — she  would  not  wash  her  face  in 
order  not  to  soil  the  water.  Whoever  married 
comare  Pina  would  make  a  good  bargain. 

But  she  would  listen  to  none  of  these  suitors; 
and  one  evening,  when  the  agent  of  the  gal- 
antuomo,  he  of  the  moustaches,  came  under 
her  window  to  sing  with  his  guitar,  Pina  threw 
a  pail  of  water  on  him,  so  that  he  shivered  as 
if  he  had  the  fever.  That  water  was  not  wast- 
ed, for   the   agent  of  the   baron    never   came 


A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPK  57 

again   to   buzz   around   the    house  of  comare 
Pina. 

If  the  neighbors  spoke  to  her  of  compare 
Gianni,  who  would  be  a  good  husband  to  her 
and  also  maintain  her  children,  she  answered' 
seriously: 

"  One  husband  I  have  already,  and  that  is 
enough  for  an  honest  woman." 

It  was  no  less  than  seven  years  after  the 
time  that  compare  Andrea  went  to  America, 
that  a  stranger  entered  on  foot  the  one  long 
street  of  the  village.  This  man  was  poorly 
clothed,  a  little  bent,  and  walked  leaning 
slightly  upon  a  stick.  His  conical  hat  with  a 
wide  brim  was  lowered  upon  his  forehead,  and 
he  appeared  at  the  same  time  weary  and  in 
haste.  He  came  to  the  piazzetta,  where  the 
women  were  filling  their  jars  at  the  fountain, 
and  asked  for  water  to  drink.  While  he  was 
drinking,  he  looked  anxiously  at  one  and  an- 
other of  the  women.  It  seemed  as  though  he 
wished  to  ask  some  question;  but  in  the  end  he 
decided  not  to  do  so,  and  contented  himself 
with  merely  thanking  the  woman  who  had  of- 


58  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

fered  him  her  jar.  Then  he  went  on  his  way 
until  he  reached  the  house  of  comare  Pina. 
Here  he  came  to  a  halt  before  the  door.  He 
passed  his  hand  more  than  once  across  his 
brow;  for  it  seemed  to  him,  as  to  a  drowning  per- 
son, that  he  saw  crowding  before  his  sight  all 
that  had  happened  during  so  many  years.  What 
was  it  in  the  odor  of  the  rosemary  and  the  thyme 
that  almost  made  the  tears  come  to  his  eyes  ? 
Was  such  a  thing  ever  heard  of !  S?i,  animo  ! 
At  least,  he  was  again  in  his  own  country. 

The  old  dog,  which  had  been  the  faithful 
companion  of  compare  Andrea,  lay  stretched 
across  the  door-stone  asleep,  rousing  himself 
now  and  then  to  snap  at  the  flies  that  teased 
him.  He  heard  the  step  of  the  stranger,  lifted 
his  head,  and  listened  a  moment.  Then  he 
arose,  growled,  was  silent  for  an  instant,  licked 
the  hand  of  the  stranger,  and  finished  with 
barking  joyously. 

Comare  Pina  left  the  loom,  and  came  to  the 
door  to  see  what  ailed  Turco  that  he  should 
bark  so  loudly.  The  stranger  stretched  out  his 
hands  to  her. 


A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  59 

"It  is  I,  Pina  inia"  he  said.  "I  am  come  back." 

Pina  stood  motionless,  as  if  she  doubted  what 
was  said  to  her.  The  dog  pulled  at  her  skirt. 
The  little  daughters  came  from  the  field  behind 
the  house,  and  stood  staring  with  great  eyes  at 
the  stranger.  In  a  few  moments  there  as- 
sembled some  comario{\hQ.  neighborhood,  who 
watched  the  traveler  on  the  road. 

"Pina,  Pina,  I  am  Andrea,"  he  said.  "  Will 
you  not  recognize  me  .-'  " 

"  Look,  Pina,"  interposed  comare  Barbara, 
who  always  thrust  herself  into  the  affairs  of 
others.  "  Do  you  not  see  that  it  is  truly  com- 
pare Andrea  .-*  He  is  badly  dressed,  it  is  true, 
so  that  he  appears  like  a  beggar — but  that  does 
not  prevent  one  from  recognizing  the  large 
nose  that  his  mamma  made  him." 

"  Are  you  not  glad  to  see  me  again } "  urged 
Andrea. 

"  It  is  so  long,  so  long  !  "  murmured  Pina  to 
herself.  "  Who  can  say  if  it  be  really  Andrea  ? 
I  do  not  know — and  I  am  Andrea's  wife." 

"Say,  Pina,  is  not  this  your  man.?"  asked 
one  of  the  neighbors. 


60  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

"What  do  I  know  about  it?"  responded 
Pina,  mournfully. 

At  this  moment  her  son  came  down  from 
the  forest.  Over  his  shoulder  hung  some  rab- 
bits which  he  had  shot;  and  his  father's  large 
gun,  almost  too  heavy  for  a  youth,  was  in  his 
hands. 

"  Who  is  this  that  comes  to  disturb  my  mam- 
ma .'' "  he  asked,  and  when  he  looked  angry  he 
was  all  his  father. 

"  I  am  your  papa,"  Andrea  answered  him. 

**  Is  my  papa  come  back  again  ?  "  said  the 
boy.  "  We  have  waited  so  long — mamma,  and 
the  little  sisters  and  I." 

Comare  Pina  snatched  the  gun  from  her  son's 
hands.  "  If  you  truly  are  my  Andrea,"  she 
said,  "you  can  shoot,  and  so  prove  it  to 
me." 

Andrea's  eyes  gleamed  under  the  rim  of  his 

hat.  He  held  out  his  hands  a  little  tremulously. 

"  I  may  have  lost  my  skill,"  he  observed.     "  I 

am  out  of  practice." 

Nevertheless,  he  took  the  gun  from  her 
hands. 


A  CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  6l 

•'  It  may  be  so,"  cried  Pina,  "  but  you  have  to 
shoot." 

"  Pina  !  Pina  !  "  entreated  the  other  women, 
frightened  without  knowing  why. 

She  drew  off  her  wedding-ring  by  main  force. 
Andrea,  looking  on  confusedly,  saw  that  her 
fingers  were  grown  much  thinner  during  the 
seven  years  of  his  absence.  She  ran  many 
paces  across  the  road;  and,  raising  her  left 
hand  to  her  head,  she  held,  between  thumb  and 
forefinger,  the  sacramental  ring  near  her  throb- 
bing temple. 

"  Shoot !  "  she  commanded. 

"  Heavens,  no,  Pina  !  For  pity's  sake  !  " 
begged  Andrea.  "Tell  me ,  rather,  to  shoot 
myself" 

".  Shoot  !  "  repeated  his  wife. 

*'  Oh  !  Will  you  not  believe  me — I  am,  I  am 
your  Andrea,  your  husband.  I  will  prove  it  to 
you  in  so  many  ways,  only  give  me  a  little 
time,"  he  prayed  her. 

"  If  you  are  my  Andrea,"  answered  Pina, 
'*  you  can  send  the  bullet  through  the  ring  that 
you  gave  me.     If  you  are  not  he — draw  the 


62  A   CALABRIAN   PENELOPE 

trigger  and  burn  my  brain,  for  I  have  waited 
and  hoped  too  long  to  be  disappointed  at  last. 
Shoot !  " 

All  the  comari  screamed  and  hid  their  faces 
from  fear;  the  daughters  ran  into  the  house  and 
crouched  under  the  bed,  not  to  see  what  was 
being  done.  The  boy  flung  himself  across  the 
door-stone,  burying  his  face  in  the  hair  of  the 
dog. 

Andrea  glanced  at  Pina.  She  did  not  look 
at  him.  Her  wide-open  eyes  were  turned  tow- 
ard the  sky  and  seemed  blinded  by  the  rays  of 
the  sunset.  Andrea  threw  down  his  hat, 
straightened  himself,  raised  the  gun  to  his 
shoulder,  took  aim,  and  fired. 

Comare  Barbara  was  the  only  one  who  could 
look  at  such  a  horror;  it  is  true  that  the  neigh- 
bors said  of  her  that  she  would  have  watched 
the  torment  of  the  souls  in  purgatory,  in 
order  to  be  able  to  tell  the  story  of  it  after- 
ward, she  was  such  a  chatterbox.  In  relat- 
ing this  story,  she  never  failed  to  say  it  was  a 
pleasure  to  see  the  bullet  pass  straight 
through  the  ring,  as  if  it  had  been  the  finger 


A  CALABRIAN   PENELOPE  63 

of  a  bride;  and  Pina's  hand  that  held  the  ring 
never  moved,  though  the  wind  of  the  bullet 
ruffled  her  hair. 

And  then  poor  Pina  ran,  all  in  tears,  fell  at 
her  husband's  feet,  and,  clasping  his  knees, 
prayed  him  to  put  the  ring  again  on  her  finger, 
as  if  they  were  standing  before  the  priest.  He 
lifted  her  from  the  ground,  and,  with  his  arm 
around  her,  led  her  into  the  house. 

It  was  true,  the  neighbors  agreed,  that  com- 
pare Andrea  had  brought  back  little  from 
America;  and  he  said  that  it  was  like  the  rest 
of  the  world — money  was  not  as  the  stones  of 
the  road,  even  there.  But  with  what  little  he 
had  saved  from  his  earnings  he  was  able  to  buy 
back  his  land,  and  some  more  with  it.  He 
spent  much  of  his  time  also  at  the  shopof  Maso 
the  blacksmith,  trying  to  construct  a  plough 
that  should  be  different  from  those  which  had 
satisfied  the  good  souls  of  his  father  and  grand- 
father; and  in  other  ways  it  appeared  to  the 
neighbors  that  his  head  was  no  longer  up  to 
the  mark.  It  might  have  been  the  effect  of  the 
yellow  fever — who  knows  ? — that  gave  him  the 


64  A   CALABRIAN    PENELOPE 

whim  of  inventing  these  things.  The  fact  is, 
too  much  thinking  spoils  the  brain  ! 

But  it  was  also  true  that,  because  of  the  ex- 
traordinary plough,  or  for  some  other  reason, 
the  land  of  compare  Andrea  bore  twice  as  much 
as  the  fields  of  his  neighbors;  and  he  had  good 
fortune  with  his  cattle,  sheep,  and  poultry.  It 
became  necessary  for  him,  besides  himself  and 
his  son,  to  hire  men  for  the  herds  and  the  land. 
The  truth  is,  riches  are  like  ducks — they  run  to 
those  who  know  how  to  call  them. 

And  it  was  really  a  consolation  to  see  co- 
mare  Pina  so  contented  at  the  side  of  her  husband 
that  she  would  not  have  wished  to  be  in  the 
clothes  of  the  queen.  The  only  anxiety  which 
remained  to  her  was  lest  Andrea  should  some 
time  desire  to  cross  the  ocean  again,  to  revisit 
America,  and  seek  fortune  in  the  Republica 
Argentina.  Meanwhile,  her  seven  years  of 
lonely  weaving  and  waiting  were  ended. 


THE  STORY  OF  CIRILLO 

TT /"HENEVER  Don  Giuseppe,  the  parish 
'  '  priest,  went  over  in  his  mind  all  that 
he  came  to  know  while  he  watched  that  night 
by  the  bedside  of  Cirillo,  the  frog-seller,  who 
died  at  the  dawn,  he  always  crossed  himself 
and  said:  "  That  poor  fellow  went  straight  to 
Paradise,  let  us  hope;  for  Purgatory  he  had 
here  below  on  earth." 

This  was  what  Don  Giuseppe  heard  from 
Cirillo,  and  he  kept  it  to  himself  like  a  confes- 
sion: 

Thirty  years  before,  day  for  day,  there  was  a 
great  festival  on  the  estates  of  the  baron  be- 
cause an  heir  was  born  to  him.  Squibs  and 
muskets  were  fired  all  day  in  the  piazzetta\ 
casks  of  wine,  of  the  kind  that  rich  people 
drink,  were  tapped  for  whomever  wished  to 
take  a  glass;  in  the  evening,  the  lads  and  girls 
danced  to  the  music  of  the  town  band,  and 

6s 


&b  THE   STORY    OF   CIRILLO 

rockets  and  bengal  lights  dashed  up  through 
the  air,  while  the  people  stood  staring  with 
open  mouth,  to  see  them  burst  into  a  rain  of 
gold  and  silver  and  colored  fires.  Only  the 
wife  of  the  baron,  poor  lady,  cared  nothing  for 
what  was  done.  As  the  women  had  said  be- 
forehand, she  was  fragile  as  glass,  and  indeed, 
a  few  days  after  her  child  came  into  the  world, 
she  went  out  of  it,  gently,  like  a  lamp  that 
lacks  oil.  The  bishop  himself  came  to  confess 
her,  although,  said  the  women,  she  was  such 
a  saint  that  to  give  her  absolution  was  like 
carrying  clean  clothes  to  the  tank  to  be  wash- 
ed. The  baron  was  in  despair,  and  turned  his 
shoulders  to  the  Madonna  del  Carmine,  who 
had  done  him  such  a  bad  lurn,  after  the  two 
candles  that  he  had  given  to  her,  tall  as  the 
sacristan's  boy,  and  of  pure  wax. 

Meanwhile  the  little  baron  screamed  for 
hunger,  in  his  fine  cradle  all  laces  and  silk,  so 
that  they  were  obliged  to  send  to  the  moun- 
tain for  coniare  Bibiana,  the  carrier's  wife,  who 
had  a  little  son  a  fortnight  old,  to  come  to  the 
great   house  to   take   the   signorino   away  to 


THE   STORY   OF  CIRILLO  6/ 

nurse  him.  She  came  in  her  husband's  cart, 
handsome  and  healthy,  dressed  for  a  holiday, 
with  many  necklaces,  and  rings  up  to  the  joint 
of  the  ten  fingers;  and  when  the  doctor,  Don 
Luca  Vitale,  put  the  baby  into  her  arms,  she 
said  that  it  was  beautiful  as  an  eye  of  the  sun, 
so  that  it  appeared  like  the  child  of  a  king; 
and  that,  even  if  her  own  little  one  had  to  be 
stinted,  she  would  always  content  first  the 
signorino.  At  the  sight  of  the  poor  dead  lady 
on  the  bier  between  the  lighted  tapers,  comare 
Bibiana  wept,  and  began  to  tear  her  hair  with 
one  hand,  holding,  meanwhile,  the  child  upon 
her  neck  with  the  other,  and  to  shriek,  as  is 
the  custom  on  such  occasions.  But  Don  Luca 
Vitale  put  his  hands  upon  her  shoulders,  and 
pushed  her,  with  good  manners,  out  of  the 
room,  saying:  "Think  of  the  little  baron, 
think  of  him  !  " 

Then  the  housekeeper.  Donna  Sabina  Mosca, 
with  a  handkerchief  at  her  eyes,  led  comare 
Bibiana  into  another  room,  and  made  her  eat 
something  from  the  table  where  the  cunsulatu 
was  spread,  all  the  good  gifts  of  heaven,  while 


68  THE  STORY   OF  CIRILLO 

the  women  wept  in  a  group  at  one  side.  Then 
they  showed  comare  Bibiana  down  the  stair- 
case and  out  of  the  great  door,  under  the 
escutcheon  draped  with  black  cloth;  and  she, 
stunned  with  awe  and  with  pity  for  that  poor 
mother  who  had  to  go  away  to  stay  with  the 
saints,  leaving  her  little  creature  on  earth, 
climbed  into  the  cart.  Maso  handed  her  their 
own  child,  that  they  were  obliged  to  bring 
with  them:  she  accommodated  a  baby  on 
each  shoulder.  ^^  Arrica  !"  cried  Maso  to  his 
mules;  and  so  the  little  baron  went  away  from 
his  house,  far  upon  the  road  that  leads  from 
Cosenza  to  the  hills  of  the  Jassi. 

Indeed,  it  was  a  pity  that  the  baron  had  it 
against  his  son,  poor  innocent,  for  the  child 
was  fine  and  robust,  so  that  it  was  a  consola- 
tion to  see  him.  But  the  baron,  every  time 
that  mastro  Gaetano  Starace,  the  steward,  or 
Donna  Sabina  Mosca,  ventured  to  hint  as 
much,  answered:  "That  one  I  will  not  see, 
for  he  cost  me  the  mother." 

Neither  would  he  think  of  taking  another 
wife,  not  even  if  she  were  a  king's  daughter, 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  69 

beautiful  as  the  moon  and  the  sun,  and  rich  as 
the  sea.  "  That  saint,"  he  would  say,  "prays 
for  me  in  Paradise." 

And,  for  her  sake,  he  took  thought  to  make 
his  soul,  so  much  so  that  he  caused  two  can- 
dles, larger  than  before,  to  be  lighted  in  honor 
of  the  Madonna  del  Carmine;  and  since  it  is 
the  business  of  the  Beautiful  Mamma  to  for- 
give, he  in  his  heart  did  not  doubt  of  pardon 
for  the  former  slight. 

Meanwhile,  the  little  baron,  Corradino,  and 
Cirillo,  the  son  of  the  carrier,  were  always  to- 
gether, in  the  cradle,  or  under  a  hedge  when 
comare  Bibiana  worked  in  the  fields.  Each 
was  prettier  than  the  other:  there  was  no 
choice.  One  day,  however,  by  ill  luck,  it  hap- 
pened that  as  Bibiana  sat  in  the  doorway  spin- 
ning, with  the  little  baron  on  her  knee,  while 
her  baby  rolled,  like  a  chicken,  in  the  dust, 
stretching  his  hand  toward  the  foster-brother, 
the  poor  little  noble  lost  his  balance  and  fell 
on  the  flat  door-stone.  He  cried  but  little, 
then;  afterward  he  whimpered  always,  with 
open  eyes,  as  if  somebody  had  taken  away  his 


70  THE   STORY    OF   CIRILLO 

sleep;  and  Bibiana  kissed  him  the  more,  be- 
cause every  wail  was  like  a  reproach  to  her  for 
that  fall  on  the  stone.  The  son  of  the  baron 
seemed  to  pine  slowly,  while  the  carrier's 
baby  grew  fat  as  a  little  pig,  and  slept  like  a 
spindle. 

Finally  the  baron  forgave  his  child,  that  he 
had  not  seen  since  the  mother  died — because 
it  was  no  use  to  have  ill  will  toward  him  who 
was  not  in  fault,  and  also  because  there  would, 
in  future,  be  wanted  an  heir  for  the  property. 
So  the  steward  and  the  housekeeper  were  sent 
to  bring  back  the  little  Don  Corradino.  As 
the  carriage  made  the  turn  of  the  road,  comare 
Bibiana  saw  them.  She  was  taken  with  a 
sudden  terror  of  the  baron's  anger  when  he 
should  see  that  puny  child,  with  pale  face  and 
hanging  arms,  with  shoulders  bent  as  if  al- 
ready under  the  burden  of  what  he  was  to 
bear  in  his  lifetime.  It  would  be  a  ruin  !  Bib- 
iana took  her  own  fine  boy  in  her  arms  and 
went  out  to  meet  the  carriage,  leaving  alone 
in  the  house  the  little  baron  whimpering  by 
the  hearth.     Donna  Sabina  Mosca  received  the 


THE   STORY  OF  CIRILLO  7 1 

child  from  comare  Bibiana,  kissing  it  with  re- 
spect, and  calling  it  Don  Corradino,  while 
mastro  Gaetano  counted  into  the  hands  of  the 
nurse  the  sum  agreed  upon,  with  something 
over  and  above.  They  thanked  her,  and 
made  her  a  compliment  of  a  pair  of  solid  gold 
ear-rings.  Then  they  went  away,  before  comare 
Bibiana  had  time  to  think  what  a  sin  she  had 
committed.  When  she  heard  Maso  on  the 
road,  talking  to  his  mules,  content  because  he 
had  earned  two  tart  more  than  usual,  Bibiana 
ran  out  and  said  so  much  that  she  induced 
him  to  swear  by  the  souls  of  his  dead  that  he 
never  would  make  known  what  she  had  done, 
for  she  had  acted  for  the  best,  she  had  acted ! 
And  if  the  signor  barone  had  had  the  displeas- 
ure of  that  poor  little  one,  who  knows  that  he 
would  not  have  sent  to  demand  the  rent  that 
was  due,  and  the  sherifif  would  have  made  the 
pignoramento,  and  left  them  in  the  middle  of 
the  road,  she  admonished  Maso. 

So  because,  in  fact,  what  is  done  is  done, 
and  also  a  little  because  of  the  thought  that 
his  own  blood  was  gone  to  riches  and  honor. 


72  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

compare  Maso  gave  himself  paace  about  it  and 
kept  silence.  Neighbors  they  h'ad  none;  if 
they  wished  to  bargain,  or  hear  the  news,  it 
was  necessary  to  go  to  the  village,  an  hour 
distant.  So  the  misdeed  of  comare  Bibiana 
was  not  suspected. 

She  had,  however,  the  punishment  for  it.  If 
Maso  came  home  at  evening,  and  sat  mute 
because  of  hunger  or  weariness,  Bibiana  be- 
lieved that  he  was  thinking  of  the  child  that 
she  robbed  from  him  to  give  to  the  baron. 
Between  the  pair  there  were  reproaches  and 
gloom;  sometimes  they  quarreled,  and  Maso 
raised  his  hand  against  his  wife.  One  day  he 
came  in  haste  to  tie  up  his  bundle,  for  he  was 
going  with  cousin  Vito  Bacigalupo,  and  some 
others,  down  there  to  America;  and  he  gave 
to  Bibiana  half  of  the  price  for  which  he  had 
sold  the  mules  and  the  cart.  After  that,  no 
more  was  ever  heard  of  him. 

All  this,  Cirillo  learned  for  the  first  time 
whe-n  mamma  Bibiana  died.  They  had  lived 
together  on  the  mountain,  loving  each  other 
even  more  than  is  usual  between  mother  and 


THE   STORY  OF  CIRILLO  73 

son;  they  were,  indeed,  as  is  the  saying,  two 
souls  in  one  hazel  nut.  Cirillo,  at  fifteen  years, 
was  grown  strong  Hke  the  twisted  olive-tree 
which  yet  withstands  all  weathers,  as  heaven 
sends;  his  long,  meagre  arms  were  never  tired, 
and  on  his  bent  shoulders  he  could  carry  a 
load  like  a  donkey.  He  worked  here  and 
there,  wherever  he  was  wanted;  mamma  Bibi- 
ana  had  been  ill  for  some  time;  now,  he  told 
her,  it  was  his  turn  to  support  her.  One  rainy 
evening  he  came  home,  after  a  week  that  he 
had  crawled  on  hands  and  knees  in  the  mud, 
gathering  the  olives  of  massaro  Giovanni  Vol- 
pintesta,  who  haggled  over  the  few  soldi  paid 
to  those  that  worked  in  that  cold  and  mire — 
and  found  mamma  Bibiana  crouching  by  the 
hearth,  with  a  kerchief  on  her  head.  "  Eat," 
she  told  him;  "there  is  the  minestra  in  the 
dish  on  the  fire.  As  for  me,  I'm  going  to  bed, 
for  I  have  round  my  head  like  an  iron  hoop." 

In  the  heart  of  the  night  Cirillo  awoke, 
frightened ;  he  wanted  to  see  the  mother.  He 
went  down  from  the  loft  where  he  slept,  flut- 
tering  the  hens  that  roosted   on  the    ladder. 


74  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

and  groped  toward  the  bedside  of  Bibiaiia. 
He  lit  the  oil  lamp,  and  by  that  feeble  light 
saw  her  face  sharp  and  changed.  **  Mamma, 
mamma ! "  he  cried,  and  would  have"  run  for 
Don  Giuseppe  to  bring  the  Lord  into  the 
house,  but  Bibiana  grasped  his  hands.  "  And 
you  stay  here,"  she  told  him.  "It  is  to  you 
that  I  have  to  confess,  for  I  have  done  you 
a  wrong." 

And,  in  short,  she  told  him  how  he,  and  not 
Don  Corradino,  was  the  son  of  the  baron. 
She  wept,  pressing  his  hands  to  her  breast;  but 
he  answered:  "  And  who  but  you,  mamma, 
would  have  loved  me  that  am  so  ugly !  " 

She  told  him  everything — as  he  in  his  turn, 
fifteen  years  later,  told  it  to  Don  Giuseppe. 
She  recommended  him  to  forgive  Maso,  too,  in 
case  he  ever  returned  from  America.  "  And 
you,  Cirillo,  stay  here  in  Calabria,  a  land 
blessed  of  the  Lord,  where  even  the  stones  are 
like  so  many  friends,  and  there  is  a  Christian 
people  that  will  not  let  you  lack  bread  if  you 
keep  yourse'lf  honest.  For  this  idea  of  Ameri- 
ca is  like  the  morgana  that  is  told  of  by  sailors; 


THE   STORY    OF   CIRILLO  75 

there  are  palaces  as  if  let  down  from  Paradise, 
but  they  are  in  the  clouds,  and  while  you  look 
they  melt,  and  who  has  seen  them  has  seen 
them.  But  you,  Cirillo,  stay  here.  And  if  ever 
you  wish  to  claim  your  right,  a  witness  to  the 
truth  can  be  Don  Luca  Vitale,  who  saw  you 
born,  and  must  know  that  the  baron's  son 
had  a  birthmark  on  the  right  thigh,  a  palm's 
breadth  above  the  knee." 

Then  she  began  to  mutter,  turning  her  head 
from  side  to  side  on  the  husk  pallet,  clasping 
Cirillo's  hands.  Finally,  her  fingers  twitched 
and  relaxed.  Mamma  Bibiana  was  dead.  Ci- 
rillo, to  let  her  soul  pass,  flung  open  the  shutters 
of  the  window,  where  the  dawn  began  to  show. 
The  cock  crowed  on  the  straw-rick.  Cirillo 
wept  because  the  mamma  was  dead,  and  even 
more  because  she  was  not  truly  his  mother,  but, 
instead,  that  baroness  whom  he  had  never 
known.  The  cock  crowed  again.  "  That  cock 
sings  to  remind  me  of  St.  Peter;  no  and  then 
no,  I  will  never  deny  that  good  soul  that  was 
my  mother  more  than  she  of  whom  I  was 
born  !  " 


76  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

The  cock  crowed  the  third  time.  Cirillo 
raised  his  hand  as  if  before  a  justice:  "  I  swear 
it  to  you,  mamma  !  " 

Because  the  illness  of  Bibiana  had  eaten  up 
the  little  savings,  Cirillo  had  to  give  up  all  th^ 
goods  to  pay  what  was  on  the  books  of  mastro 
Gaetano,  and  for  the  funeral  of  mamma  Bibi- 
ana, who  slept  as  well  behind  the  hedge  of  the 
camposanto  as  that  other  mother  of  the  baron 
in  the  tomb  with  the  escutcheon.  When  the 
baron  heard  of  this,  for  charity  he  sent  for  Ci- 
rillo to  be  his  servant;  and  those  days  were  not 
bad  for  the  poor  fellow,  for  he  had  food  and 
drink,  and  a  little  place  under  the  stairs  to  sleep 
in.  Sometimes,  as  he  served  the  baron,  who 
was  now  old,  Cirillo  would  think,  "  What  if  he 
knew  that  I  am  his  son  !  "  But  the  sight  of 
himself  in  the  great  mirror  drove  away  that 
thought;  only  mamma  Bibiana  could  have 
loved  him,  ugly  as  he  was  !  But  at  times, 
passing  through  the  hall  where  were  portraits 
of  so  many  barons  and  baronesses,  that  were 
only  dust  and  a  name  but  for  those  canvases, 
he  would  lift  his  eyes  to  them  and  say,   "  You 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  TJ 

know  very  well  that  a  place  there  belongs  to 
me  also." 

All  straight,  with  heads  high — those  lords; 
not  one  of  them  had  ever  fallen  on  the  door- 
stone.  And  were  it  in  order  to  be  a  king  with 
a  crown,  Cirillo  would  not  have  denied  mamma 
Bibiana;  for  every  time  that  he  thought  of  these 
things,  it  seemed  to  him  that  a  cock  crowed  in 
his  heart. 

Finally,  the  baron  was  stricken  by  an  apo- 
plexy, and  the  old  doctor,  Don  Luca  Vitale, 
came  and  looked  through  his  great  horn-rim- 
med glasses,  took  snuff,  and  shook  his  head. 
He  despatched  a  servant  to  the  palace  of  the 
Bishop,  and  then  turned  to  Cirillo,  saying  to 
him,  "  Run  to  call  the  heir;  his  father,  perhaps, 
can  at  least  press  his  hand." 

Cirillo  clapped  his  palm  upon  his  right  leg, 
above  the  knee,  for  it  appeared  to  him  that  the 
doctor  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  through  the 
cloth  of  his  trousers.  He  met  Don  Corra- 
dino  coming  into  the  courtyard  from  a  boar- 
hunt;  the  signorino  threw  down  his  gun  and 
ran  to  the  chamber  where  the  old  baron  lay  in 


78  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

the  great  bed  with  red  silk  curtains.  And  Cirillo 
thrust  himself  into  his  den  under  the  stairs,  until 
he  heard  Don  Luca's  heavy  tread  descending, 
and  the  great  door  open  and  close  as  the  phy- 
sician went  out.  That  occasion  was  past,  and 
he  had  not  denied  mamma  Bibiana. 

After  the  time  of  mourning  for  the  old  baron 
was  ended,  the  new  baron,  Don  Corradino,  sold 
some  lands,  and  it  was  known  that  he  was  going 
to  Paris  of  France.  Mastro  Gaetano  would  rule 
things,  as  indeed  he  had  done  for  years;  Cirillo 
also  would  remain;  the  women  were  dismissed, 
and  Donna  Sabina  Mosca  was  pensioned  and 
went  to  live  at  the  house  of  a  niece  at  Cosenza, 
with  money  enough  to  let  her  pass  the  days  with 
her  hands  upon  her  belt.  When  after  a  year  the 
baron  returned,  he  brought  with  him  a  servant 
from  Paris,  a  young  fellow  with  moustaches 
like  a  cat,  mischievous  as  a  red  donkey,  who 
made  a  butt  of  Cirillo  and  sneered  when  the 
poor  man,  teased  by  those  unkind  looks,  let 
fall  a  dish  on  the  floor.  This  man  aped  Cirillo's 
movements  and  modes;  and  did  so  much  that 
at  last  the  baron  said,  "  Ohe,  Cirillo,  here  you 


THE  STORY   OF  CIRILLO  79 

come  in  like  Pontius  Pilate  into  the  creed;  it  is 
better  for  you  to  stay  in  the  stables,  and  take 
care  of  my  horses." 

So  Cirillo  slept  no  more  under  the  stairs,  but 
in  the  hayloft.  It  appeared  that  those  good 
beasts  knew  more  than  Christians;  they  under- 
stood that  Cirillo  was  of  noble  race,  like  them- 
selves, and  they  took  to  loving  him.  He 
cleaned  and  fed  them,  and  trained  the  colts; 
and  whenever  the  baron  sent  any  to  be  sold  at 
Cosenza,  Cirillo  led  them  by  the  halter;  and 
when  the  bargain  was  made,  he  with  the  pre- 
text of  tightening  the  leather  strap,  would  ap- 
proach his  mouth  to  the  ear  of  the  horse  and 
whisper,  "  Good  -  bye  and  good  luck,  my 
brother  !  " 

Then  the  baron  took  the  whim  to  go  as  far 
as  England,  where  they  never  see  the  sun  be- 
cause of  the  fog;  and  that  time  also  he  brought 
back  a  servant,  a  nimble  little  man  with  a  red 
face,  and  gave  him  charge  of  the  stables, 
where  he  chewed  straws  and  hissed  like  a  ser- 
pent as  he  groomed  the  horses,  and  command- 
ed Cirillo  to  bring  buckets  of  water.     "  Look, 


80  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

Cirillo,"  said  the  baron,  "  now  that  there  is 
Tommy  for  the  horses,  go  you  to  the  chest- 
nuts." 

Up  there,  on  the  mountain,  the  chestnut 
crop  had  been  computed  upon  the  trees  by  com- 
pare Nunzio  who  came  from  Malito  on  pur- 
pose— one-third  for  massaro  Cola  Brancalupo 
who  had  the  torre  and  the  groves  on  mezzadria 
and  two-thirds  for  the  baron  that  owned  the 
land.  Cirillo  had  to  watch  the  drying  of  the 
chestnuts,  night  and  day,  in  the  acrid  smoke  of 
the  green  wood  that  at  first  gave  him  a  deuced 
cough,  while  the  tears  ran  down  his  face.  But 
he  became  used  to  it,  as  to  everything.  At  the 
spelaticra,  he  trampled  the  nuts  with  his  wooden 
shoes,  stimulating  the  other  fellows  that  worked 
with  him,  and  crying  "  Viva  sanf  Antonio  !" 
while  the  down  of  the  chestnuts  flew  in  the  air 
and  the  nuts  rattled  in  the  sieves.  Then  later 
in  November,  he  went  with  the  long  line  of 
ploughs  to  the  fields  of  the  Vallo,  where  the 
black  earth  steamed;  while  the  quails  flew  over 
in  great  flocks  on  the  way  to  Africa,  crying 
qua,  qua,  qua.  Then  to  the  olive-groves  where 


THE   STORY   OF  CIRILLO  8l 

Cirillo  swung  himself  among  the  highest 
branches,  with  his  long  arms,  to  beat  down 
the  olives,  while  men,  women  and  children 
crept  about  on  the  muddy  ground  to  gather 
them.  At  Ave  Maria,  shelter  was  sought  in  the 
farm-house;  there  the  lads  and  girls  danced  to 
the  cornamtisa  and  the  ciaramedda.  But  Cirillo 
invited  no  one  to  dance;  who  would  dance  with 
him,  ugly  as  he  was?  The  mas s aro tsi\ked  with 
him  about  the  old  baron,  good  soul,  and  the 
extravagances  of  the  young  baron;  and  also 
about  King  Vittorio  who  soon  would  have 
driven  away  all  the  strangers,  like  so  many 
wolves.  "  But  I  am  not  yet  old,"  thought 
Cirillo,  "  and  if  it  was  known  that  I  am  the 
baron,  even  comare  Menica  there  would  dance 
with  me,  ugly  as  I  am." 

After  the  olives,  Cirillo  had  to  work  in  the 
fields,  those  fat  fields  of  the  Vallo  where  mala- 
ria overcomes  the  peasant  and  puts  him  to  bed 
with  the  fever.  So  it  happened  to  Cirillo;  and 
he  took  refuge  in  a  hovel  there,  near  a  pond, 
and  every  day  that  he  had  the  fever  he  stayed 
under  a  coverlet  and   his  great  cloak,  with  a 


82  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

kerchief  on  his  head;  and  other  days  he  went 
in  a  cracked  boat  that  was  there,  to  catch  fish 
and  eels  in  the  pond.  He  caught  frogs  too, 
which  in  Calabria  are  called  singing  fishes,  and 
since  he  was  no  longer  able  to  work  for  the 
baron  he  set  up  an  industry  of  his  own,  selling 
fish  and  frogs  through  the  country,  crying 
with  his  fine  voice:  "  Pesci  cantanti,  pesci  can- 
tanti  !  "  So,  because  of  his  bent  shoulders  and 
long  arms,  and  eyes  dull  from  the  malaria,  the 
people  who  did  not  know  his  name  called  him 
the  pesce  cantante,  for  indeed  he  resembled  a 
frog.  And  as  he  stood  in  the  mud  up  to  his 
knees,  to  catch  the  frogs  that  populated  it,  like 
the  peasants  on  the  lands  of  Don  Corradino,  he 
would  roll  his  trousers  above  the  mark  upon 
his  leg,  and  point  it  out  to  the  frogs,  saying, 
"  Here,  at  least,  I  am  the  baron  !  " 

For  he  lived  by  them,  as  the  baron  lived  by 
the  peasants;  and  if  he  needed  a  little  money, 
his  hand  was  heavy  upon  them,  poor  beasts,  as 
if  they  had  rented  the  pond  from  him. 

One  day  when  he  carried  fish  to  the  great 
house,  he  learned  that  it  was  a  gala  day,  for 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  83 

the  baron  was  bringing  home  his  bride,  the 
daughter  of  a  Sicilian  duke.  Cirillo  waited  in 
the  courtyard  to  see  the  bridal  pair  come  dash- 
ing in,  behind  four  fine  white  horses,  while  the 
servants  cried,  "  Vivano  gli  sposi  !  "  m.  chorus. 
Cirillo  said  between  himself  and  himself,  "  If  I 
had  claimed  my  right,  that  lady  might  have 
married  me,  instead  of  the  son  of  Maso  the 
carrier!"  Then  he  shouted  "Long  live  the 
pair  !  "  with  the  others,  and  Donna  Isabella 
turned  upon  him  a  smile  that  appeared  to  him 
like  the  morning  star  when  it  shone  upon  the 
gloomy  pond,  at  dawn.  That  was  a  great  lady ! 
Although  Cirillo  had  had  little  education,  ex- 
cept that  which  came  in  his  blood  because  he 
was  the  son  of  the  baron,  and  the  good  princi- 
ples taught  him  by  mamma  Bibiana,  and  a  \\\.- 
\\q.  a  b  c  that  he  learned  of  the  parish  priest — 
still  he  comprehended  how  rude  was  Baron 
Corradino:  a  real  peasant  like  his  father  the 
carrier. 

But  the  beautiful  baroness  appeared  to  notice 
nothing,  not  even  when  her  husband  stumbled 
in  the  train  of  her  rich  gown — no  more  than  the 


84  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

morning  star  thinks  of  the  tree-tops  which 
seem  to  tear  the  clouds  below  it.  That  was 
truly  a  great  lady  !  As  she  passed  through  the 
doorway,  with  the  servants  in  line  on  each  side, 
Cirillo  heard  her  say,  "  Who  is  that  poor  fel- 
low ?  "  and  her  husband  answered,  "  It  is  Ci- 
rillo the  frog-seller."  Cirillo  struck  his  leg  a 
smart  blow,  in  order  not  to  cry  out  "  I  am  the 
baron  !  "  Then  he  thought  of  mamma  Bibiana, 
and  also  how  useless  it  would  be  to  make  a 
noise  and  get  himself  driven  away  with  sticks. 
About  this,  too,  he  had  patience,  and  went  away 
through  the  village  crying  ^^  Pesci  cantanti  !" 
to  sell  his  frogs  to  those  who  wished  to  make 
broth  for  the  old  or  the  sick.  Afterward,  when 
he  brought  fish  to  the  great  house,  the  baroness 
with  her  maid  or  her  housekeeper  who  was  twice 
as  grand  as  Donna  Sabina  Mosca  in  her  time, 
came  sometimes  into  the  courtyard.  Donna 
Isabella  would  have  paid  Cirillo  more  than  his 
price,  so  much  she  pitied  him;  but  he  would 
not  take  more  than  was  due.  She  talked  to  him 
with  her  sweet  voice,  while  he  had  a  mad  wish 
to  throw  himself  on  the  "round  and  kiss  the 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  85 

hem  of  her  gown,  as  to  the  Madonna  del  Car- 
mine; and  when  she  sent  the  maid  to  bring  a 
tray  of  refreshments,  Cirillo  would  take  only  a 
little  glass  of  wine  and  a  mouthful  of  bread  that 
seemed  to  him  like  a  sacrament.  "  This  sig- 
nora  baronessa"  he  thought,  "  must  be  like 
that  other  who  died  to  bring  me  into  the  world; 
she  was  an  angel — but  my  true  mother  was 
mamma  Bibiana." 

The  fact  is,  the  angels  are  well  off  in  heaven; 
but  here  on  earth  one  must  have  a  little  bit  of 
the  demon  in  one's  body,  in  order  not  to  get 
the  worst  of  it.  And  that  little  bit  the  baroness 
had,  so  that  she  made  her  reasons  heard  many 
times  with  Don  Corradino.  He  had  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  like  a  rude  peasant,  despite 
the  escutcheon  over  the  great  door,  and  the 
gallery  of  ancestors,  and  the  silver  plate  with 
the  baronial  cipher.  Isabella  was  so  beautiful, 
so  white,  he  was  in  awe  of  her;  he  perceived 
that  she  avoided  his  coarse,  stubby  hands  with 
the  bitten  nails.  He  knew  how  to  talk  of  noth- 
ing but  the  crops,  or  hunting,  or  the  theatres 
of  Paris  of  France,  where,  instead  of  the  holy 


86  THE   STORY    OF   CIRILLO 

mysteries  or  the  deeds  of  the  Reali  or  of  Guer- 
ino  il  Meschino,  they  represent  things  worse 
than  the  dance  of  the  witches  around  the  nut- 
tree  of  Benevento.  She,  instead,  had  instruc- 
tion; if  the  king  himself  had  come,  she  would 
have  talked  with  him  as  with  any  person  what- 
ever ! 

One  day,  in  Cirillo's  presence,  the  baron  and 
the  baroness  were  discussing  some  trifle,  upon 
the  steps  of  the  house;  and  at  a  blunder  of  his 
she  turned  upon  him  her  great  eyes  full  of  con- 
tempt, so  that  he  raised  his  hand,  just  like  Maso 
the  carrier  when  he  quarreled  with  Bibiana, 
and  would  have  given  her  a  box  on  the  ear, 
only  that  Cirillo  threw  himself  between  them 
and  cried,  "Boor,  do  not  touch  her  !  " 

At  that  word  the  baron  lost  his  compass;  he 
saw  everything  red  before  his  eyes;  he  took 
Cirillo  by  the  neck  and  threw  him  backward 
down  the  steps,  like  a  sack  of  rags.  The  instant 
of  fury  past,  the  baron  leaped  down  into  the 
courtyard,  full  of  remorse;  while  Donna:  Isa- 
bella ran  to  call  some  servants  to  take  Cirillo 
on  their  arms  into  the  house.     "  Here,  here," 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  87 

cried  the  baron,  flinging  open  the  door  of  the 
great  room  where  his  father  died.  "  Carry 
him  in  here,  my  poor  foster-brother  Cirillo  !  " 

Then  they  saddled  a  horse  to  go  for  the  doc- 
tor. Cirillo  recognized  the  sound  of  the  hoofs 
of  old  Sultano,  the  roan.  "  Good-bye  and  good 
luck,  Sultano,"  he  said.  "  KCit  it  is  I  who  am 
going  away,  this  time.  Then  he  begged  Donna 
Isabella  not  .to  weep,  for  the  baron  had  not 
meant  to  harm  him,  and  between  foster-broth- 
ers it  is  easy  to  forgive. 

When  Don  Luca  Vitale,  now  very  old,  came, 
he  looked  through  his  glasses  and  took  snuff 
and  shook  his  head,  just  as  when,  so  long  ago, 
he  visited  the  baron.  It  was  a  question  of  some 
broken  bones,  and  strength  consumed  by  the 
malaria  of  the  Vallo,  and  Don  Luca  said  cer- 
tain Latin  big  words  that  nobody  understood, 
but  they  must  mean  something  very  grave. 
Cirillo  would  hardly  last  through  the  night. 

When  Don  Luca  Vitale  felt  of  the  right  leg, 
broken  a  little  above  the  knee,  Cirillo  looked 
fixedly  at  him.  Now,  at  last,  the  truth  might 
have  been  made  plain,  and  by  no  act  of  Cirillo. 


88  THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO 

But  the  old  doctor  had  forgotten  the  birthmark 
of  the  son  of  the  baron.  "  Better  so,  mamma 
Bibiana,"  he  muttered;  and  Don  Luca,  who  was 
a  httle  deaf,  beheved  that  he  was  complaining 
of  the  pain  of  the  leg. 

Now  that  it  was  too  late,  Don  Corradino 
would  have  given  his  own  blood  to  cure  that 
poor  fellow,  but  Cirillo  embraced  him  and  told 
him  it  was  the  will  of  heaven.  If  they  would 
have  him  die  in  peace,  let  them  send  for  Don 
Giuseppe,  the  parish  priest,  who  taught  him 
what  little  he  could  stammer  of  the  breviary, 
and  the  duties  of  a  Christian,  and  for  charity 
had  said  so  many  masses,  without  a  tari  of  pay, 
for  the  soul  of  mamma  Bibiana.  When  Don 
Giuseppe  came,  Cirillo  would  have  everyone 
leave  the  room,  since  there  was  no  more  to  be 
done  for  the  body,  only  for  the  soul,  and  those 
servants  in  gold  lace  and  livery  put  him  in  awe 
so  that  he  could  not  collect  himself  to  make  a 
good  end.  To  the  confessor  everything  ought 
to  be  told;  and  in  that  night  Cirillo  recounted 
his  life  to  Don  Giuseppe,  and  recommended 
him  to  pray  for  the  dying  man,  but  still  more 


THE   STORY   OF   CIRILLO  89 

for  poor  Bibiana  who  had  gone  with  a  sin  upon 
her  conscience. 

So  it  was  that  Cirillo  died  in  the  bed  where 
he  was  born,  in  the  bed  with  the  red  silk  cur- 
tains, where  his  father  died,  his  grandfather  and 
his  great-grandfather.  With  his  last  breath,  he 
said,  smiling,  "Mamma  Bibiana!  "  And  in  the 
courtyard  a  cock  crowed,  and  it  was  dawn. 


THE   TREE   OF    THE   BRIDE 

^  I  ^HAT  year  Don  Giammaria,  the  curate,  re- 
-■-  solved  that  he  would  put  a  stop  to  the 
galloping  baldness  of  the  mountain.  Against 
the  law,  the  charcoal-burners  had  cut  down  the 
forest  without  pity,  as  their  fathers  did  before 
them;  for  it  is  the  rich  who  make  the  laws, 
while  the  poor  must  live  as  they  can.  And  an 
old  law,  too,  is  like  an  old  dog  that  has  lost  its 
teeth  and  can  no  longer  bite.  So,  at  night,  the 
fires  reddened  here  and  there  on  the  black, 
bristling  slope;  and  by  day  the  axes  sounded, 
cutting  down  the  woods.  Because  the  trees 
were  thinned,  so  that  they  no  longer  availed  to 
hold  back  the  snows,  as  soon  as  the  sirocco 
began  to  blow  in  the  spring  the  little  streams, 
suddenly  swollen,  flooded  the  fields  of  the  foot- 
hills, and  carried  away  beasts  and  houses. 
Ugly  landslides  had  left  scars  upon  the  side  of 

the  mountain;  every  one  marked  a  disaster. 
90 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  9I 

That  very  season  compare  Santo  Fcrroni  had 
seen  a  fine  pair  of  oxen  drown  at  the  ford, 
eight  legs  in  the  air,  and  the  cart  behind  them 
pounding  up  and  down  in  the  torrent,  before  he 
could  say,  "  Sant'  Eligio  help  them  !  "  And 
the  widow  of  Cola  Greco,  the  goatherd,  had 
watched  from  her  doorway  while  the  waters 
spread  over  her  little  field  and  carried  the  soil 
down  the  stream  as  if  to  go  to  plant  that 
sprouting  grain  in  the  sea.  Everybody  had  his 
troubles  with  the  freshets  that  season. 

So  Don  Giammaria,  in  the  pulpit,  told  his 
parishioners  that  they  had  robbed  the  mountain 
and  must  repay;  they  had  reduced  it  to  naked- 
ness and  must  clothe  it  again;  that  even  with 
the  earth  one  ought  to  be  honest,  for  also  she 
is  a  creature  of  the  good  Lord.  Then  he  came 
to  facts,  and  said  that  in  future  he  wouldn't 
give  the  sacrament  of  matrimony  to  any  couple 
of  Christians  until  the  bridegroom  should  first 
have  brought  two  young  trees  from  the  thicket 
of  the  plain,  one  for  himself  and  one  for  the 
bride,  and  planted  them  there  where  the  moun- 
tain was  quite  bare,  above  the  small  piece  of 


92  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

table-land,  somewhat  hollowed,  which  (be- 
cause of  its  shape  like  a  kneading-tray)  was 
called  the  Madia.  The  roots  of  the  young  trees 
would  spread,  said  Don  Giammaria,  bind  the 
soil,  make  head  against  the  melting  snows,  and 
thus  hinder  disasters.  And  the  worthy  curate, 
warming  up,  made  upon  that  theme  such  a  fine 
sermon,  full  of  unction,  likening  those  roots  to 
the  affections  of  husband  and  wife,  that  many 
women  wept,  quite  touched  by  those  holy 
words,  and  the  girls  all  hung  upon  his  lips. 

Certain  young  fellows,  not  in  the  fear  of  the 
Lord,  as  they  stood  near  the  door,  waiting  for 
the  girls  to  come  out,  grinned  and  said  that,  as 
for  them,  it  would  take  as  long  to  choose  the 
trees  of  marriage  as  it  did  Bertoldo — him  of  the 
legend — to  find  the  tree  that  suited  him  to  be 
hanged  upon.  Near  the  altar,  compare  Giro- 
lamo  Tadda,  who  that  morning  had  ridden 
down  from  his  house  at  the  Madia — on  his  don- 
key that  was  tied  to  a  fig-tree  in  the  church- 
yard to  wait  for  him — thought  of  the  landslide 
that,  when  he  was  a  child,  came  down  the 
steep,  parted  to  right  and  left,  with  a  noise  like 


THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  93 

thunder,  behind  the  house;  and  how  his  mo- 
ther, in  her  chemise,  snatched  him  from  the 
bed  and  ran  out  with  him  in  her  arms.  Now 
that  his  parents  were  dead,  he  lived  alone  in 
the  hut;  he  had  scarcely  thought  of  marriage; 
his  sole  companion  was  that  little  black  don- 
key, called  la  Muridda,  kind  and  intelligent, 
that  listened  to  all  that  he  said,  and  almost 
seemed  to  have  speech,  nodding  her  head  and 
shaking  her  ears.  "We  are  well  off,  eh?"  he 
would  say  to  her,  and  la  Muridda  would  turn 
on  him  her  sober  eyes  and  thrust  her  moist 
muzzle  into  his  hand. 

That  Sunday,  however,  the  words  of  Don 
Giammaria  stuck  like  nails  in  the  mind  of  com- 
pare Girolamo.  Riding  up  the  mountain,  he 
without  his  own  will,  looked  at  the  trees  beside 
the  path.  "That  one  would  do  for  the  bride- 
groom, for  'tis  tall  and  stout  like  compare  Mico 
that  carries  the  banner  in  the  processions;  that 
other,  so  pretty,  would  be  for  the  bride;  no, 
here's  another  still  more  beautiful !  "  And  once 
he  stopped  la  Muridda  in  order  to  look  at  a 
little  fir-tree,  until  the  good  beast  lost  patience, 


94  THE   TREE   OF    THE    BRIDE 

lifted  her  head  and  let  off  her  voice,  as  if  to  re- 
mind him  that  they  should  go  home.  "  Right 
you  are,  my  little  old  one.     Arricica  I" 

They  followed  the  path,  full  of  stones  and 
stumps,  up  to  that  piece  of  land,  somewhat 
sheltered  by  the  rocks  that  formed  the  sides  of 
the  "  kneading-tray,"  where  compare  Girolamo 
had  the  house,  and  a  little  ground  planted  with 
cabbages  and  broad  beans.  He  led  the  don- 
key into  the  house,  tied  her  by  the  halter  in  a 
corner  where  was  a  litter  of  straw,  gave  her 
some  barley  and  hay,  then  put  a  dish  of  niines- 
tra  to  the  embers,  ate,  and  finally  went  to  bed, 
where  his  snoring  outranked  the  finest  bray 
that  la  Muridda  had  ever  sent  forth  in  the  face 
of  earth  and  heaven.  And  who  knows  whether 
there  came  into  his  dreams  the  trees  of  the 
bridegroom  and  the  bride  ! 

But  destiny  willed  that  compare  Girolamo 
should  one  day  go  in  search  of  those  two  trees, 
and  thus  it  happened:  As  he  went  down  the 
mountain,  walking  at  the  side  of  the  donkey 
that  was  almost  hidden  by  the  load  of  fagots, 
he  smoked  his  clay  pipe,  content  under    the 


THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  95 

April  sun.  La  Muridda,  with  nose  lowered, 
took  care  for  her  steps,  setting  her  hoofs  accu- 
rately on  the  rough  path,  full  of  pebbles.  The 
fagots  creaked,  and  some  big  round  cabbages 
that  crowned  the  load  reeled  as  if  drunken,  so 
that  compare  Girolamo  had  now  and  then  to 
put  his  hand  to  steady  them.  Down  there, 
where  the  mountain  path  joins  the  road  to 
Cosenza,  he  saw  a  cart  that  moved  slowly; 
then  the  woods  hid  it  from  sight.  As  he 
reached  the  main  road,  he  saw  that  the  cart 
had  stopped.  The  mule  that  had  drawn  it  was 
fallen  and  lay  motionless.  The  master  was  on 
his  knees  beside  the  poor  beast,  while  a  girl 
gathered  up  the  things  thrown  to  the  ground. 

"  Help !  help !  Christians  !  "  cried  the  master 
of  the  mule. 

Compare  Girolamo  ran  to  him,  leaving  la 
Muridda,  that  thrust  her  nose  into  a  clump  of 
thistles  as  if  it  were  no  affair  of  hers.  The 
fallen  mule,  old,  with  projecting  bones,  was 
dead  between  the  shafts. 

"  He  has  fallen — your  mule  .-'  "  said  compare 
Girolamo. 


96  THE   TREE    OF   THE   BRIDE 

"  Rather,  he  won't  get  up  again  !  " 

"  Better  a  beast  than  a  baptized  person,  if 
that  is  the  will  of  heaven." 

"  And  we  are  ruined,  we  are  !  We  must  go 
to  the  fair  at  Cosenza,  I  and  my  daughter 
Anastasia  here  present.  And  what  can  be 
done,  now  my  mule  is  dead  and  my  stuff  scat- 
tered on  the  ground  .'* " 

On  hearing  the  name  of  the  girl,  compare 
Girolamo  for  the  first  time  looked  at  her.  She 
was  beautiful,  with  heavy  braids  of  red  hair, 
lithe  as  a  cat;  her  lips  were  full  and  scarlet,  and 
she  had  certain  large  eyes,  the  color  of  black 
wine,  that  disquieted  him.  Over  that  head,  that 
was  like  burnished  copper,  was  tied  a  black 
silk  kerchief.  Her  cotton-and-wool  gown  was 
rather  ragged,  plaids  of  ash-color  and  green. 
She  sat  on  the  ground,  looking  at  a  puppet  that 
she  held  in  her  hand,  all  a  rag  of  torn  tinsel.  As 
she  saw  that  compare  Girolamo  was  looking 
at  her,  she  began  to  laugh,  showing  her  fine 
teeth,  and  made  the  Pulcinella  dance  in  the  air. 

"Beautiful,  do  you  think.?"  she  asked  com- 
pare Girolamo. 


THE  TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  97 

He,  poor  fellow,  saw  only  her  eyes,  that 
glowed  like  the  thick  Calabrian  wine,  and 
answered,  '*  Beautiful  indeed,  gna  'Nastasia." 

She  laughed  louder;  then  rose  to  her  feet 
and  began  to  put  the  puppets  and  the  proper- 
ties in  order  in  the  cart,  while  the  two  men 
drew  the  dead  mule  out  of  the  shafts.  The 
owner  of  the  puppet-show  lamented,  thrusting 
his  hands  in  his  hair,  '*  Oh,  blessed  Sant'  Eli- 
gio,  draw  the  cart  for  me  yourself,  since  you 
wouldn't  save  the  poor  beast !  If  not,  how 
shall  I  do  in  order  to  set  up,  in  the  piazza  at 
Cosenza,  my  famous  puppet-show,  the  castello 
of  mastro  Orlando  Zaccardo,  favored  by  the 
aristocracy  and  the  illustrious  military  every- 
where !  " 

Compare  Girolamo  had  an  idea  that  did  not 
seem  his  own,  it  was  so  opportune.  Rather,  it 
appeared  to  him  suggested  by  those  bewitch- 
ing eyes  of  Anastasia  which  excited  his  stupid 
brain,  for,  says  the  proverb,  "  The  goad  puts 
feeling  into  donkeys." 

"  Listen,  mastro  Zaccardo,"  he  said.  "  I  will 
run  to  disembarrass  la  Muridda  of  the  fagots, 


98  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

and  she  will  draw  the  cart  to  Cosenza  for  you 
just  like  the  poor  mule.  She's  an  honest  ass 
that  earns  her  barley  and  straw,  that  one.  We 
will  leave  the  fagots  here,  and  you  can  pay  me 
some  soldi  for  them  when  we  settle  accounts. 
And  the  cabbages,  with  leave  of  gfia  'Nasta- 
sia,  that  good  gift  of  heaven  can  be  disposed 
among  the  other  things  without  doing  harm  to 
any." 

"Blessed  be  charity  to  one's  neighbor!" 
responded  mastro  Zaccardo. 

"  Certainly  the  cabbages  can  ride  like  so 
many  lords,"  said  his  daughter. 

The  load  adjusted,  compare  Girolamo  guided 
la  Muridda,  while  the  others  walked  beside  the 
cart  until  they  arrived  at  Cosenza. 

There,  in  the  piazza,  was  an  uproar.  People 
from  the  mountain  villages  and  from  the  sea- 
coast  mingled  with  the  citizens.  The  crowd 
pressed  and  jostled;  hands  were  thrust  in  peo- 
ple's faces,  to  bargain  for  beasts  or  for  goods. 
The  band  played  at  one  side  of  the  square; 
from  the  booths  venders  cried  their  fruits  and 
trinkets;  the  fishermen   from  Paola  had  rush- 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  99 

baskets  full  of  fish  and  polyps;  a  fortune-teller 
turned  his  hand-organ  and  made  his  canaries 
dance;  the  herdsmen  had  brought  beasts,  and 
the  women  sold  poultry;  all  those  voices  were 
raised  in  a  babel.  Mastro  Orlando  Zaccardo 
set  up  his  little  theatre,  driving  in  poles  and 
nailing  up  curtains;  also  his  daughter  was  busy 
inside  the  castello  of  the  puppets.  Meanwhile, 
compare  Girolamo  went  about  to  sell  his  cab- 
bages, crying  : 

"  Oh,  cabbages  !  Green  they  are,  green. 
Cabbages,  of  those  good  ones.  Feel  of  them, 
whether  they  are  heavy.  They  have  some 
weight,  my  good  cabbages;  they  are  not  like 
rags.     Solid  they  are,  at  every  proof." 

He  let  one  fall  with  a  thump,  to  convince  the 
buyers.  All  those  cabbages  had  their  leaves 
curled,  as  if  with  the  smile  that  comes  from  a 
good  heart. 

"  Oh,  cabbages  !  Who  wants  cabbages  .■• 
Green,  I  have  them  green.  Ca-a-a-a-a-b- 
bages  !  " 

Fine  and  round,  they  recommended  them- 
selves and  sold  quickly.     Then  compare  Giro- 


lOO  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

lamo  went  to  find  the  puppet-show  of  mastro 
Orlando  Zaccardo.  Around  it  was  a  crowd  of 
people — men,  women  and  children,  with  some 
soldiers  and  non-commissioned  officers.  The 
curtains  of  the  castello  rose,  and  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  Pulcinella  began.  Mastro  Orlando 
himself  spoke  for  Pulcinella  and  Tartagghia, 
the  famous  rivals  who  paid  court  to  the  beauti- 
ful Colombina;  and  moved  them,  with  his  arms 
thrust  through  their  empty  clothes.  Also  Bir- 
licchi  and  Birlacchi,  those  ugly  devils  ready  to 
carry  off  people,  and  Pulcinella's  bull-dog, 
leaped  and  howled  by  means  of  mastro  Or- 
lando. To  Anastasiawas  entrusted  la  Colom- 
bina, to  whom  she  lent  a  voice  like  that  of  a 
decoy  thrush.  Sometimes,  if  the  puppets  were 
too  many,  Anastasia  gave  a  hand  to  one  or 
another;  she  also  pulled  the  wires  of  Death, 
that  had  a  wooden  body  without  joints,  and 
said  little  as  it  passed,  threatening,  across  the 
stage. 

The  crowd  was  in  delight  when,  from  Tartag- 
ghia's  stick,  the  blows  showered  on  the  head  of 
Pulcinella,  wood  upon  wood,  with  a  fine  noise. 


THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  lOI 

"  Now  you've  got  it  well !  "  said  a  sergeant 
of  bersaglieri. 

'*  This  time  his  head  is  broken,  poor  fellow," 
noted  the  women;  while  the  babies  screamed 
to  see  such  hard  blows  that  felled  Pulcinella. 
Then  Colombina  ran,  felt  of  the  bones  of  the 
worthy  Pulcinella,  passed  her  hands  over  his 
face  with  the  big  wooden  nose,  painted  pink, 
and  burst  into  a  great  lament: 

"Ah,  how  charming  he  was,  good  soul! 
Another  admirer  like  that  I  shall  not  find  ! 
How  many  compliments  of  sweetmeats  and 
boiled  polyps  he  brought  me  !  He  had  a  heart 
like  the  sea,  and  gave  to  me  with  both  hands  ! 
If  he  were  alive  I'd  take  him  for  a  husband,  I'd 
take  him."  And  Pulcinella,  naturally,  arose  to 
make  Colombina  keep  her  word. 

But  to  compare  Girolamo  it  appeared  as  if 
Anastasia  had  spoken  those  phrases  for  him; 
the  blood  went  to  his  head.  "And  who  knows 
that  one  day  I  dt)n't  seek  the  tree  of  the  bride  .■' " 
he  said  to  himself. 

At  that  moment,  Anastasia  came  out  from 
the    castello  of  the    puppets.     How  beautiful 


I02  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

she  was,  in  a  black  velvet  bodice,  skirts  of 
pink  gauze  all  spangled,  so  many  necklaces  of 
pinchbeck  and  glass  pearls,  rings  up  to  the 
joint  of  every  finger,  and  certain  shoes  of  gild- 
ed leather  that  appeared  to  dance  upon  the 
heart  of  compare  Girolamo.  "  If  she  doesn't 
say  me  nay,  true  as  I  live  I  will  find  the  tree 
of  the  bride,"  he  swore  within  himself. 

Anastasia  sang,  beating  the  tamburello, 
dancing  a  few  steps.  Her  large  eyes  turned 
here  and  there  upon  the  spectators.  Then  she 
carried  round  a  tin  plate  to  collect  the  soldi; 
for  one  can't  trust  the  public  not  to  disperse 
without  paying — better  to  receive  the  money 
before  the  performance  is  ended.  Anastasia's 
face  had  a  smile  like  that  of  Colombina,  that 
never  changed,  as  if  it  had  been  painted  on 
wood.  The  sergeant  of  bersaglieri  offered  her 
some  cakes,  and  she  accepted  them  with  the 
air  of  a  prima  donna,  so  that  they  appeared  like 
a  gift  of  jewels.  When  she  c^me  to  compare 
Girolamo,  he,  instead  of  money,  put  into  the 
dish  his  mother's  wedding-ring,  which  he  wore 
on  his   little  finger.      Anastasia   said  nothing 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  IO3 

but  grew  red  as  a  tomato,  and  hid  the  ring  in 
her  palm.  Then  she  ran  into  the  castello. 
The  curtain  rose;  tutuiy  tutuiy  sounded  the 
whistle,  as  Pulcinella  and  Tartagghia  came 
beating  each  other  with  sticks.  Pulcinella 
would  have  had  the  worst  of  it,  if  his  dog  had 
not  taken  the  enemy  by  the  back  of  the  trou- 
sers, while  the  devils  carried  off  Tartagghia, 
squeaking,  and  the  crowd  shouted,  "  Bravo, 
Pulcinella  !  "  Otherwise,  there  were  those  of 
the  spectators  that  had  taken  up  small  stones, 
ready  to  do  justice  to  that  rogue  of  a  Tartagghia. 

Compare  Girolamo  remained  as  if  in  a  dream. 
The  muzzle  of  la  Muridda,  stretched  out  to 
touch  his  hand,  made  him  start.  "Away,  im- 
portunate beast !  "  he  said  to  her. 

Anastasia,  who  had  approached,  reproved 
him.  •*  She's  hungry,  the  poor  beast,  after 
having  dragged  the  cart,  she  that  usually  has 
not  so  great  a  load.  See  how  her  ears  hang  ! 
Go,  compare  Girolamo,  to  get  her  something 
to  eat." 

The  girl,  now  in  the  old  plaid  gown,  stroked 
the  neck  of  the  ass,  that  looked  askance  at  her. 


I04  THE   TREE    OF   THE    BRIDE 

Protected  by  Anastasia,  la  Muridda  appeared 
more  sympathetic  to  compare  Girolamo.  He 
went  to  buy  grain,  and  also  a  bundle  of  hay 
from  an  old  woman  that  sold  it;  and  while  he 
bargained,  he  turned  to  glance  at  Anastasia. 
She  was  feeding  the  ass  with  the  cakes  of  the 
sergeant,  while  he,  at  a  little  distance,  with  his 
hat  over  one  ear,  made  sweet  little  eyes  at  her, 
which  she  feigned  not  to  see.  Those  few 
things  that  compare  Girolamo  needed — a 
match-box,  a  clasp-knife,  some  horn  buttons 
— he  did  not  find  it  easy  to  buy. 

"  I  don't  know  where  my  head  is,"  he  com- 
plained to  himself;  "  I'm  no  longer  in  my  own 
centre.  Better  for  me  to  stay  at  home;  for  in 
the  town,  with  all  the  noise,  an  apoplexy 
would  come  to  me.  Who  is  born  an  acorn,  let 
him  fall  near  the  oak."  And  he  blamed  also 
the  wine  that  he  had  drunk,  a  glass  here,  and 
a  glass  there.  "  It  has  betrayed  me,  that  wine. 
Another  time  I'll  stay  on  the  mountain  and 
sell  my  cabbages  by  means  of  compare  Maso 
the  carrier,  for  now  it  seems  to  me  as  if  I  had  a 
swarm  of  bees  in  my  head." 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  IO5 

Then  he  returned  to  Anastasia,  who  helped 
him  to  feed  the  donkey,  that  seemed  discon- 
tented, as  if  that  girl's  caresses  did  not  please 
her.  Mastro  Orlando  had  taken  apart  the 
castello,  and  loaded  the  cart.  "  Let  us  go  to 
eat  something,"  he  said  to  his  daughter;  "com- 
pare Girolamo  will  do  us  the  favor  to  come  to 
table  with  us."  They  went  to  an  inn  that  was 
near,  and  mastro  Orlando  had  set  on  the  table 
so  many  dishes — sausages,  and  maccheroni, 
and  a  fowl,  with  plenty  of  fruit  and  wine — 
that  to  compare  Girolamo  it  did  not  seem  real. 
They  talked  of  what  had  been  earned  in  the 
day. 

"  As  for  me,"  said  mastro  Zaccardo,  "  I  don't 
complain  about  the  money;  what  troubles  me 
is  the  loss  of  the  mule.  If  you  will,  I  should 
like  to  bargain  with  you  for  your  donkey,  com- 
pare Girolamo." 

"  One  doesn't  sell  a  person  of  the  family. 
La-  Muridda  belonged  to  my  father,  good 
soul;  indeed,  the  evening  before  he  died,  he 
made  a  drink  of  meal  and  water  for  her,  as  for 
a  sister." 


106      THE  TREE  OF  THE  BRIDE 

"  And  do  you  call  her  aunt,  then  ?  "  asked 
Anastasia,  pouring  for  him  a  glass  of  wine. 

The  mountaineer  knew  that  he  made  a  poor 
figure  before  that  mocking  girl.  "  Eh,  a  beast 
is  only  a  beast,"  he  said,  pointlessly.  "  If  I  wish 
to  sell  her,  who  hinders  me  ?  " 

Mastro  Zaccardo  saw  his  opportunity. 
"  And  how  much  do  you  pretend  to  ask  for  the 
donkey,  compare  Girolamo  .'' 

"  And  how  much  do  you  give  me  ?  " 

"  We  shall  see;  what  do  you  want  ? " 

"  And  what  do  you  give  .-'  " 

"  We  haven't  the  three  days  of  the  fair  of 
Castrogiovanni  to  bargain  in;  let  us  come  quick- 
ly to  terms." 

"  Let  us  come." 

"  If  I  make  you  a  present  of  thirty  lire  for 
that  donkey,  'tis  because  I  am  your  friend,  and 
recognize  that  I  am  bound  to  you,  compare 
Girolamo." 

"  What  !  thirty  lire  of  Egypt !  I  keep  my 
donkey.  That  one  is  strong,  with  the  heart  of 
a  lion,  as  good  as  a  horse  to  draw  or  carry  a 
load." 


THE   TREE    OF   THE    BRIDE  lO/ 

"  She  can't  be  a  colt  any  longer.  It  wasn't 
yesterday  that  you  had  her  from  your  father, 
peace  to  his  soul !  " 

The  two  men  went  out  into  the  courtyard 
of  the  inn,  and  Anastasia  with  them.  La 
Muridda,  with  head  bent,  stood  patiently  wait- 
ing for  her  master.  They  felt  her  all  over  with 
their  hands;  she  had  a  little  swelling  on  one 
leg;  there  was  a  raw  spot  on  her  neck,  plas- 
tered with  tar  and  nearly  healed;  but  she  was 
neither  lame  nor  broken-winded,  and  her  coat 
was  smooth — a  sign  of  health  in  a  beast.  The 
men  bargained,  haggling  over  the  price.  La 
Muridda  turned  her  gaze  from  one  to  another 
as  if  to  say,  "  Buy  me  or  sell  me;  I  change 
masters,  but  not  my  way  of  life,  for  an  ass  al- 
ways carries  wine,  and  drinks  water."  Only 
she  rubbed  her  nose  on  compare  Girolamo's 
sleeve,  as  if  she  bore  affection  to  him.  Anas- 
tasia took  no  part  in  what  was  done;  she  lean- 
ed against  the  wall,  looking  in  the  air.  The 
strong  wine  and  those  dark  eyes  of  the  girl 
made  compare  Girolamo  bold.  "  Listen,  mas- 
tro  Zaccardo.    Since  we  can't  come  to  terms  on 


I08  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

the  price,  I  make  you  a  proposition:  I  would 
like  to  be  your  son-in-law;  and  if  it  does  not 
displease  mistress  Anastasia,  I'll  take  her,  with- 
out dowry,  in  exchange  for  the  donkey.  What 
do  you  say  to  that,  mastro  Zaccardo  ?  " 

The  father  thought  of  the  annoyances  which 
his  daughter  gave  him;  she  suffered  from 
nerves;  was  lazy  or  industrious  according  to 
caprice;  sometimes  she  let  people  make  her 
compliments  not  too  finely  sifted;  other  times 
she  sent  her  father  with  his  cherry-wood  stick 
to  ask  reasons  from  village  dandies  or  from 
bersaglieri,  so  that  often  it  was  at  the  risk  of 
his  bones.  Sometimes  she  made  new  dresses 
for  the  company  of  puppets,  or  she  left  them 
ragged;  she  would  now  and  then  stay  in  bed 
the  whole  day,  if  by  chance  they  had  gotten 
into  a  good  lodging,  and  leave  the  work  all  for 
her  father — Pulcinella,  Colombina,  Tartag- 
ghia,  the  dogs,  Death  and  the  devils.  There- 
fore la  Muridda  seemed  to  him  better,  for  the 
ass  would  work  and  neither  scold  him  nor 
spend  his  money.  The  songs  and  smiles  of 
Anastasia  were  all  for  the  public ;  her  cavils  and 


THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  I09 

ill  humors  for  her  father.  Better  the  donkey ! 
He  struck  his  hand  into  compare  Girolamo's. 
"  Done.  I  give  you  my  daughter,  and  take 
your  donkey." 

This  sobered  compare  Girolamo  all  at  once* 
He  looked  shyly  at  the  girl,  who  stood  smiling 
with  pride,  cold  and  indifferent.  Her  fine 
shoulders  stood  out  against  the  worm-eaten 
wood  of  the  stall.  "  Are  you  content,  signora 
Anastasia  ? " 

"  And  why  not  ?  " 

"I  will  be  a  good  man  to  you;  I  shall  not 
let  you  lack  anything,  if  you  do  me  this  honor." 

"  So  many  thanks." 

She  did  not  blush  now,  as  when  she  took  the 
ring  that  had  been  his  mother's.  He  did  not 
dare  to  tell  her  that  he  loved  her,  not  even 
when  mastro  Orlando  went  into  the  inn  to  pay 
the  reckoning,  and  left  them  alone.  Compare 
Girolamo  did  not  know  what  it  was  that  he  felt 
for  Anastasia;  she  was  so  mocking,  that  he 
would  have  liked  to  kiss  her  and  to  beat  her.  He 
loved  her,  he  loved  her  indeed — but  he  would 
have  had  pleasure  in  tearing  off  with  his  nails 


no  THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE 

the  cold  smile  that  she  had  on  her  face.  Oh, 
what  was  this  ?  It  could  not  be  love,  like  that 
of  his  father,  who  neither  kissed  nor  beat  his 
mother.  That  beauty  of  Anastasia  was  worse 
than  the  black  wine  to  make  him  melancholy. 

As  they  were  ready  to  start,  the  sergeant  of 
bersaglieri  passed  by.  "  Where  are  you  going, 
my  pretty  girl ,-'  "  he  asked  of  Anastasia. 

She  was  silent,  but  Girolamo  replied,  "  We 
are  going  to  be  married.  Have  you  anything 
to  say  against  it  ?  " 

"I  ?  no  ;"  then  the  sergeant  turned  to  Anas- 
tasia. "But  when  you  are  tired  of  planting 
cabbages,  pretty  bride,  come  to  Naples,  where 
our  regiment  will  be,  and  we  will  find  you  a 
place  to  sing  in  a  cafe." 

Girolamo's  hand  clenched  his  stick,  but 
Anastasia  whispered,  "  Don't  mind  it,  dear 
Girolamo."  That  sweet  word  spared  the 
bones  of  the  bersagliere,  who  turned  and  went 
away,  whistling. 

"  At  least  until  after  the  wedding,  mastro 
Orlando,  you  must  stay  in  my  house,"  compare 
Girolamo  invited  him. 


THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE  III 

The  next  day,  Girolamo  went  in  search  of 
the  two  trees;  as  he  passed  through  the  vil- 
lage, leading  la  Muridda  that  was  to  bring  the 
saplings  up  the  mountain,  people  asked  him, 
"  Oh,  compare  Girolamo,  where  is  the  load  of 
your  donkey?"  and  he  replied,  "After  I  shall 
have  talked  with  Don  Giammaria,  I  shall  go 
for  the  load."  In  fact  the  curate  had  much  to 
say  to  him,  besides  teaching  him  the  duties  of 
the  occasion  toward  the  law  and  toward  re- 
ligion. "  You  would  have  done  better  to  take  a 
wife  herein  the  village;  comare  Rosa's  Martina, 
or  massaro  Venerando's  Lucia,  good  girls  that 
are  not  seen  at  the  window,  but,  instead,  stay  at 
the  loom.  With  this  stranger  you  will  have 
troubles,  my  son."  But  compare  Girolamo 
said  that  he  would  have  Anastasia,  he  would 
have  her;  and  he  persisted  so  that  Don  Giam- 
maria, to  change  the  subject,  made  him  a 
homily  upon  matrimony,  and  let  him  go. 

Compare  Girolamo,  when  he  arrived  at  the 
thicket  of  the  plain,  soon  dug  up  a  young  pine 
that  wasn't  ugly.  "Any  tree  whatever  does 
for  me,"  he  said,  "  but  for  Anastasia,  so  beauti- 


112  THE   TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE 

ful,  there  would  be  wanted  one  with  leaves  of 
gold  and  silver." 

At  last  he  found  a  little  larch,  slim  and 
straight,  that,  as  the  breeze  blew,  swung  its 
tassels  just  like  the  ear-rings  of  Anastasia. 
"  Here's  the  tree  of  the  bride  !  "  He  dug  care- 
fully around  it;  took  it  in  his  arms  tenderly 
as  if  it  had  been  the  bride  herself,  and  put  it 
upon  the  back  of  la  Muridda.  Then  he  went 
up  the  mountain  to  plant  those  trees  according 
to  the  will  of  Don  Giammaria. 

The  W'hole  village,  for  curiosity,  went  to  the 
wedding  of  compare  Girolamo — he  that  had 
led  the  life  of  a  hermit  up  there  on  the  moun- 
tain— with  the  red-haired  girl  whom  they  call- 
ed "  the  gipsy."  "  Rossa  e  rissa"  observed 
viassaro  Venerando,  shaking  his  forefinger 
solemnly  in  his  neighbor's  face.  "  True  it  is, 
that  red  hair  and  quarrels  go  in  company. 
Compare  Girolamo  will  have  his  troubles — he 
will  have  them." 

But  everybody  knew  that  Uncle  Venerando 
would  have  liked  to  marry  his  daughter  Lucia 
to  compare  Girolamo,  because,  although  poor. 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  II3 

the  latter  came  of  a  respected  family.  And  in 
Calabria,  black  hair  is  common  as  the  black 
earth,  while  red  hair  isn't  seen  in  every  piazza. 
After  the  wedding,  mastro  Orlando  Zaccardo 
went  away  with  his  puppet-show,  and  the  cart 
drawn  by  la  Muridda.  When  Girolamo  said 
good-bye  to  the  black  donkey,  he  would  have 
sworn  that  the  poor  beast  had  tears  in  her 
eyes.  "For  you  I  sha'n't  mix  any  more  drinks 
of  bran  and  water  when  your  bones  are  as  if 
broken  trotting  about  the  threshing-floor  on 
the  sheaves.     May  you  live  well,  Muridda  !  " 

When  Anastasia  patted  the  nose  of  the  don- 
key, la  Muridda  suddenly  bit  the  bride's  hand 
as  if  to  say,  "  'Tis  you  that  have  driven  me 
out  of  the  house."  Compare  Girolamo  feigned 
to  examine  a  wheel,  for  he  would  not  punish 
the  poor  beast  that  was  going  away. 

At  first,  mistress  Anastasia  was  content. 
She  had  hated  the  gipsy  life,  the  weary  jour- 
neys, the  scant  food,  the  nights  passed  under 
a  hedge,  the  rude  words  and  acts  of  low  peo- 
ple that  came  to  the  puppet-show,  the  repe- 
tition of  her  songs  and  of  the   silly  speeches 


114  THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE 

of  Colombina.  Now  she  could  wander  on  the 
mountain  all  in  bloom,  gather  raspberries, 
look  at  herself  in  the  pools  among  the  rocks, 
lie  on  beds  of  moss  and  dream  impossible 
things.  Then  as  the  summer  passed,  all  was 
no  longer  new  to  her;  the  sun  set  earlier,  and 
it  was  no  use  to  light  the  pitch-splinters  in 
the  house,  for  her  husband  passed  the  even- 
ings in  sleeping,  and  she  did  not  know  how 
to  spin.  The  silence  weighed  on  her  chest, 
the  melancholy  of  the  black  mountain,  the 
path  where  no  one  ever  came — unless  now  and 
then  Don  Giammaria,  who  looked  after  the 
trees  planted  by  the  bridegrooms  of  his  flock, 
as  if  that  plantation  were  another  parish  of 
his — the  wind  that  blew  among  the  pines,  the 
steep  rocks  of  the  Madia,  the  stupid  cabbages 
of  the  garden,  the  pots  and  pans,  and,  more 
than  all,  that  idiot  of  a  Girolamo,  she  detested 
them  all.  Pumpkin-head  as  her  husband  was, 
if  he  did  not  stay  away  all  the  day  at  work  she 
at  least  would  have  had  a  living  soul  to  speak 
to.  She  would  have  liked  the  company  of  la 
Muridda;  although  the  donkey  had  appeared 


THE  TREE   OF   THE   BRWE  II5 

to  have  it  against  her,  perhaps  because  of  that 
bargain,  and  had  brayed  at  her,  as  donkeys  do 
when  they  see  a  woman  with  her  shoes  trodden 
down  at  the  heel.  For,  without  the  public  to 
admire  her  beauty,  Anastasia  took  no  care  to 
be  neat;  her  red  hair  was  rough  and  her  face 
and  gown  were  dirty.  She  would  not  sweep 
her  house;  what  bread  they  ate,  compare 
Girolamo  bought  at  the  shop  of  comare  Rosa, 
in  the  village,  who  said,  "  My  daughter  Mar- 
tina, I  don't  say  it  in  order  to  boast,  can  make 
bread  of  unbolted  wheat  so  that  it  tastes  like 
fine  flour." 

And  when  compare  Girolamo  had  gone  out 
of  the  shop,  the  women  would  say,  "  That  one 
made  a  blunder,  to  take  the  gipsy." 

In  the  house,  the  poor  fellow  had  no  peace, 
for  his  wife  scolded  and  wept,  or  else  main- 
tained a  dull  silence  that  was  worse.  Not  to 
quarrel,  Girolamo  would  go  off  to  the  place 
where  were  the  pine  and  the  larch;  and  little 
by  little  it  seemed  to  him  that  the  graceful 
larch,  with  its  swinging  ornaments,  was  his 
bride  rather  than  that  loveless  woman  there  in 


Il6  THE  TREE   OF  THE   BRIDE 

his  house.  He  did  not  know  how  to  please  An- 
astasia;  everything  that  he  did  appeared  to  an- 
noy her;  she  had  certain  affectations,  and  was 
disgusted  by  his  manners  of  a  peasant.  A 
sudden  fury  seized  her  at  the  sight  of  his  big 
thumb  crowding  the  tobacco  into  his  clay  pipe; 
she  could  not  give  herself  a  reason,  but  so  it 
was.  The  sound  of  his  jaws  when  he  ate,  his 
grating  snores  at  night,  hurt  her. 

"  Perhaps  women  are  all  like  that,"  thought 
compare  Girolamo,  standing  beside  the  larch 
that  swept  his  cheek  with  its  tassels.  Every 
morning,  before  the  light  was  seen  on  the 
heights  of  La  Sila,  he  went  to  work;  besides 
the  charcoal,  he  was  employed  at  the  Vallo 
for  the  vintage,  and  later  for  the  chestnuts. 
One  evening,  in  order  to  keep  him  awake, 
Anastasia  told  him  the  facts  of  her  life,  speak- 
ing rapidly  and  with  excitement.  Certain 
things  that  she  said  made  her  husband  jealous 
and  angry.  When  she  observed  that,  to  tease 
him  still  more,  she  ran  to  the  fir-wood  chest, 
took  out  the  velvet  bodice,  the  pink  skirt  with 
spangles,  and  the  gilded  shoes,  put  them  on. 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  I  I7 

and  danced  as  if  possessed,  beating  her  tam- 
burello.  Compare  Girolamo  all  at  once  under- 
stood how  great  a  blunder  he  had  made,  that 
day  at  the  fair  at  Cosenza. 

"  Amaru  iu  !  that  I  brought  this  puppet  into 
my  house.  Go,  dress  yourself  like  an  honest 
woman,  as  the  wife  of  my  mother's  son  should 
be." 

"  Honest  I  have  been  always.  But  here  I'm 
eating  my  heart;  to  live  in  this  house  is  to  be 

like  a  dead   woman    under  the  stones  of  the 

■  # 

church." 

She  wept  noisily,  shaking  her  bare  shoulders. 
Compare  Girolamo  pushed  her  with  both  hands, 
so  that  she  fell  upon  the  fir-wood  cassone.  A 
bruise  began  to  redden  upon  one  of  those  beau- 
tiful shoulders. 

The  next  morning,  it  seemed  that  she  had 
forgotten  the  strife  of  that  evening;  and  com- 
pare Girolamo  was  ashamed  even  to  ask  her 
pardon  for  the  rude  push  given  to  her.  They 
ate,  speaking  little.  When  he  slung  the  bisac- 
cia  on  his  shoulder,  to  go  to  the  chestnuts  in 
that  dreary  November  day,  with  the  clouds  on 


Il8  THE    TREE   OF   THE   BRIDE 

the  mountain,  and  the  mists  rising  from  the 
ploughed  fields  and  from  the  river-banks  down 
below,  it  appeared  as  if  Anastasia  wanted  to 
say  something  to  him,  taking  in  breath  as  if  to 
form  words.  But  nothing  she  said.  Then 
compare  Girolamo  on  the  threshold-— -and  after- 
ward he  was  glad  of  it — turned  and  said  to  her: 

"  'Nastasia,  I  leave  you  with  holy  peace." 

"  And  I  salute  you  and  recommend  you  to 
the  saints." 

When  at  evening  he  came  home  from  the 
chestnuts,  not  far  away,  the  house  had  neither 
fire  nor  light.  The  fir-wood  cassone  wdiS  open; 
nothing  was  missing  there  except  the  velvet 
bodice  and  the  pink  skirt  with  spangles,  and  the 
gilded  shoes.  Anastasia  was  gone  away  to 
lead  the  gipsy  life  again. 

The  next  day,  when  Don  Giammaria  came 
up  the  mountain,  riding  on  his  sorrel  mule,  to 
look  at  the  trees,  he  saw  compare  Girolamo 
there,  who  had  cut  down  the  larch,  the  tree  of 
the  bride,  and  now  gave  it  blow  after  blow  with 
the  axe  as  if  for  revenge. 

"  Oh,  why   will    you    give  it  to  that  tree  } 


THE   TREE   OF   THE    BRIDE  I  I9 

You  do  wrong  to  cut  wood  here,  compare  Giro- 
lamo." 

"  I  know  that  I  do  wrong,  reverendo;  but  if 
not,  I  might  do  worse.  I'm  cutting  to  pieces 
the  tree  of  the  bride,  to  let  off  my  anger;  as  I 
would  like  to  cut  to  pieces  that  Anastasia  that 
has  tormented  me  and  now  has  run  away." 

And  he  raised  his  axe  again,  and  hacked  the 
larch:  "  Take  it !  and  take  it !  " 

"  I  told  you  that  you  were  making  a  blunder, 
my  son.  Patience,  for  in  this  world  we  must 
suffer." 

Don  Giammaria  knew  that  it  was  not  yet  the 
time  for  consolation  nor  for  a  moral  homily. 
He  blessed  the  poor  fellow,  turned  the  mule 
around  and  rode  down  the  mountain,  while  be- 
hind him  the  hard  blows  of  the  axe  resounded 
among  the  rocks,  as  compare  Girolamo  cut 
into  splinters  the  tree  of  the  bride. 


A  TRUMPET    CALL 

\  T /"HEN  the  signora  went  to  the  house  of 
^  '  comare  Sarina,  on  the  mountain  road 
above  Cosenza,  to  speak  about  a  web  of  cloth 
that  was  to  be  woven  in  arabesques,  she  saw 
in  the  opposite  dooryard  a  very  stout  and  florid 
woman,  who  sat  on  the  steps  of  her  house  with 
half  a  dozen  children  playing  around  her. 

"  I  see  that  vossignoria  is  looking  at  that 
great  piece  of  a  woman  like  a  purple  cabbage, 
— speaking  with  respect !  "  observed  comare 
Sarina.  "  When  I  see  that  Rosa  there,  content 
as  an  Easter  Day,  there  comes  to  me  the 
wish  to  close  the  shutters  of  my  window. 
Many  years  ago,  when  we  were  all  girls  to- 
gether, I  and  the  others  had  to  work  in  order  to 
eat.  But  Donna  Rosina — no,  sirs  !  Anything 
but  work.  For  her  father  was  Don  Ciccu,  the 
apothecary,  and  they  kept  her  in  cotton  wool, 
so  that  at  most  she  helped   him  make  barley 


A   TRUMPET   CALL  121 

sugar,  or  would  roll  two  pills  in  case  of  illness 
at  the  house  of  the  baron. 

"  And  we  others  had  to  toil  at  home  and  in  the 
fields,  and  to  bring  down  the  ice  and  the  snow, 
in  the  summer,  from  the  ravines  up  there  tow- 
ard the  forest  of  La  Sila.  We  would  plait 
mats  of  willow  withes,  and  lay  sheepskins  over, 
and  heap  the  ice  on  these,  and  cover  it  with 
another  skin  and  many  green  boughs,  all 
bound  down  with  other  withes.  This  we  car- 
ried on  our  heads,  one  getting  help  from  an- 
other to  place  it  there,  on  a  folded  cloth — 
your  excellency  from  the  city  cannot  know 
these  things;  and  we  went  down  the  mountain 
path  for  miles,  with  the  icy  drops  that  trickled 
on  one's  nose  or  down  the  back  of  the  neck 
making  one  shiver,  however  heated. 

"  When  we  came  to  the  bit  of  tableland,  we 
would  set  down  our  loads  to  rest,  and  one 
would  sing  the  tarantella  while  others  danced. 
Girls  have  quicksilver  about  them. 

"  Just  here  was  where  Donna  Rosina  came 
in — she  had  herself  called  donna  because 
of  the  leeches  and  the  pills,  and  the  four  words 


122  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

of  Latin  of  her  father,  Don  Ciccu.  She  could 
not  work — no,  she  was  too  delicate;  but  she 
could  dance  like  a  grasshopper  !  And  com- 
pare Tonio,  that  kept  the  sheep  of  Don  Zeno, 
the  parish  priest,  as  soon  as  he  heard  us  sing 
would  come  around  the  great  boulder  that  was 
there,  and  play  on  his  pipe  enough  to  call  the 
birds  from  the  bushes.  And  Donna  Rosina  all 
jumping  for  joy,  and  certain  glances  ! 

"  Also  her  mother,  Donna  Santuzza,  made 
Tonio  so  many  compliments  of  tobacco  and 
woolen  stockings.  A-ah  !  they  knew  how  to 
bind  him  round  with  their  coaxings  — they 
knew !  And  the  others  of  us  girls  were  not  so 
much  uglier  than  Rosa.  Even  I,  that  they 
call  Zi  Melacotta — I  had  not  always  the  face 
of  a  baked  apple,  but  was  in  my  time  red  and 
white  like  another.  But  the  fact  was,  they 
would  absolutely  have  Tonio;  and  the  girls 
might  burst  with  spite — they  would  have  him. 
It  was  comare  Barbara  who  was  thought  to 
have  put  an  envy  upon  them,  so  that  their 
chickens  died  and  the  young  ducks  could  not 
swim    up-stream.     Zia    Petronilla,  the    white 


A   TRUMPET   CALL  I23 

witch,  said  as  much,  and  she  spoke  the  verses 
and  signed  them  with  water  and  salt  to  take 
away  the  evil  eye. 

"  We  should  have  eaten  the  wedding  sugar- 
plums that  June,  but  there  was  made  the  draft 
for  the  army,  and  Tonio  drew  a  bad  number; 
and  we  all  went  to  the  piazzetta  to  see  the 
brave  boys  go  away  with  fife  and  drum,  and  the 
mammas  and  the  sweethearts  that  wept  with 
their  faces  in  their  aprons.  Pom!  pom! — one  felt 
upon  the  stomach  the  thumps  of  the  bass  drum, 
so  that  it  made  one  melancholy,  as  the  recruits 
went  away  down  the  road. 

*'  Soldiers  must  go  here  and  there  according 
as  the  king  wills;  they  toil  hard,  with  little 
leisure,  and  Tonio  sent  few  letters.  In  our 
town  they  did  not  know  how  to  write;  then 
there  were  not  the  public  schools,  and  it  was 
enough  for  one  to  make  his  cross  on  stamped 
paper  in  order  to  take  land  on  mezzadria. 
Now  and  then  came  a  letter  from  Tonio  to  say 
that  he  was  well,  and  wished  as  much  to  Rosa, 
to  his  family,  and  all  friendly  persons;  that  he 
had  begun  to  learn  to  read,  attending  the  cor- 


124  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

poral's  lessons;  and  that,  because  he  had  so 
good  lungs  and  a  just  ear,  the  bandmaster  had 
taught  him  to  be  one  of  the  trumpeters  of  his 
regiment. 

"  Of  these  letters  Rosa  read  certain  parts — 
her  father  had  instructed  her  a  little — to  the  girls 
at  the  fountain  in  the  piazzetta;  other  passages, 
not;  and  at  these  she  became  red  as  burning 
embers,  for  the  scrivano\ya.A  known  so  well  how 
to  say  all  the  fine  things  that  Tonio  had  in  his 
heart. 

"  But  it  did  not  last  so.  Perhaps  Tonio  w^as 
not  content  with  her  letters,  for  she  had  them 
written  by  her  father;  and  he,  good  soul,  was 
not  a  poet,  little  or  at  all.  And  out  of  sight, 
out  of  mind — men  are  that  way.  Rosina  had 
no  more  letters  for  many  weeks.  And  I,  at  the 
fountain,  would  say  to  her: 

"  'Patience,  Rosina,  he  may  be  ill,  or  even 
dead.  And  then,  young  men  play  tricks  of  all 
colors;  he  may  easily  find  himself  tired  of  you; 
and  in  the  great  cities  there  are  so  many  beau- 
tiful girls  with  silk  gowns,  finer  than  the  Ma- 
donna del  Carmine  on  a  feast  day.     I  counsel 


A  TRUMPET  CALL  12$ 

you,  comare  Rosa' — for  I  would  not  give  her 
the  '  donna,'  the  little  toad — '  to  give  your- 
self peace  about  it,  and  look  out  for  another 
lover.' 

"  And  one  day  she  let  fall  her  copper  jar 
upon  the  stones,  so  that  it  took  a  great  bruise, 
and  she  wept  like  the  fountain  itself.  '  Sarina,' 
she  said,  '  what  have  I  done  to  you  that  you 
tell  me  these  things  .?  My  Tonio  is  an  honest 
lad.' 

"  Eh,  these  girls  that  are  kept  in  cotton  wool ! 
I  or  another,  to  have  been  left  so  by  the  lover, 
would  have  made  a  wry  face,  shed  perhaps  two 
big  tears  in  secret,  and  then — good-evening  to 
the  music,  and  found  a  new  lover.  For  we  had 
to  work,  vossignoria,  and  the  rattling  of  the 
loom  is  good  company;  and  in  the  fields,  the 
warm  earth  and  the  green  stalks  of  the  young 
grain,  and  the  tomtits  that  wag  their  little  tails 
between  the  furrows,  and  the  locusts  that  sing 
keep  us  cheerful;  and  to  go  to  bed  at  evening 
with  bones  broken  from  weariness,  one  sleeps 
soundly. 

"  But   she   sat  in  the  doorway  of  the  drug 


126  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

shop,  looking  down  the  street  as  if  to  see  far 
away.  And  only  to  speak  a  word  to  her  she 
would  cry  or  laugh  like  one  possessed.  The 
doctor  did  what  he  could,  but,  according  to 
me,  it  was  rather  a  case  for  the  priest  to  drive 
out  the  demon;  or  else  an  envy,  a  witchcraft. 
And  certainly  I  believe  that  La  Barbara,  and  I 
may  say  also  Luciola  and  Sabedda  and  Sidora, 
would  willingly  have  married  compare  Tonio 
if  he  had  asked  them.  Bold  and  spiteful  those 
girls  !  For  me,  I  would  not  have  looked  at 
compare  Tonio,  not  even  if  he  had  been  made 
of  gold  ! 

"  Little  by  little  Donna  Rosina  wasted  like  a 
lighted  candle.  She  took  off  from  her  neck  the 
heart  of  filigree  silver  that  Tonio  had  brought 
her  from  the  fair  at  Cosenza,  when  he  went 
there  to  sell  some  sheep;  and  she  hung  it,  red 
ribbon  and  all,  on  the  altar,  beside  the  little 
silver  leg  of  mastro  Cola,  the  cripple,  for  whom 
there  had  been  made  the  grace  of  a  rheumatism 
that  had  tormented  him  for  thirty  years,  and 
the  corals  of  comare  Veronica,  whose  son 
came  back  from  sea  after  four  years  that  he  was 


A  TRUMPET  CALL  12/ 

believed  to  be  drowned,  and  so  many  other  fine 
things  to  the  praise  of  the  blessed  Madonna  del 
Carmine,  that,  as  every  one  knows,  can  make 
any  ten  other  Madonnas  run  away  with  lifted 
legs. 

"  But  in  vain  Rosa  made  the  act  of  faith  of 
that  silver  heart.  Tonio  did  not  write  nor 
come.  Heaven  preserve  me  from  speaking  ill 
of  the  saints  !  but  sometimes,  to  trust  all  to 
them,  one  loses  by  it.  As  for  me,  if  I  had  been 
in  the  clothes  of  Rosa  and  cared  for  Tonio,  in- 
stead of  consuming  myself  in  that  manner,  I 
should  have  gone  straight  to  the  king  himself 
and  said,  '  Do  me  the  favor,  majesty;  send 
home  my  lad,  for  I  don't  see  the  wedding- 
day,  so  that  it  appears  to  me  like  a  thousand 
years.' 

"  However,  each  one  according  to  his  own 
character.  Rosa  turned  everything  upside 
down:  one  day  she  would  break  dishes,  and 
another  stay  in  bed;  and  again  it  would  be  a 
great  outburst  of  tears  that  reduced  her  like  a 
washed  rag;  and  the  next  thing  she  would 
curse  Tonio  that  an  apoplexy  might  take  him, 


128  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

and  then  tear  her  hair  because  she  was  losing 
her  baptism  by  committing  in  her  heart  the 
mortal  sin  of  murder.  For  Donna  Rosina  was 
one  who  gave  herself  the  airs  of  a  little  saint  fit 
to  be  put  under  a  glass  bell,  with  one  hand  in 
the  other,  that  did  neither  good  nor  harm. 
Then  a  little  fever;  or  she  would  grow  stiff  as 
a  stake  and  seem  ready  to  suffocate,  so  that  va- 
rious times  Don  Zeno  was  called  in  all  haste, 
in  the  heart  of  the  night,  and  came  accompa- 
nied by  the  sacristan  with  the  aspersorium  in 
one  hand  and  the  great  lantern  in  the  other, 
so  that  he  was  obliged  to  tinkle  the  little  bell 
with  only  two  fingers.  And  so,  many  times 
Rosa  had  the  blessed  oil  under  false  pretenses. 
For,  die  to-day  and  die  to-morrow,  she  still 
lived  and  lamented,  and  would  at  all  costs  have 
her  Tonio  come  back  and  marry  her. 

"And  she  grew  whiter  and  thinner  day  by 
day,  so  that  indeed  she  resembled  a  wax  taper. 

"  The  thing  ended  in  this  way:  One  morn- 
ing, at  the  fountain,  it  was  known  that  at  last 
poor  Rosa  was  really  dead.  All  through  the 
night  she  had  screamed  for  Tonio,  with  curses 


A   TRUMPET   CALL  I29 

and  with  blessings,  according  as  the  caprice 
came  to  her.  By  fortune,  she  had  died  with 
holy  words  in  her  mouth,  so  that  it  might  be 
hoped  that  her  soul  was  not  lost.  And  we  all 
were  ready  to  give  a  hand  to  take  her,  if  pos- 
sible, the  sooner  out  of  purgatory;  for  indeed 
it  would  be  less  trouble  to  say  the  rosary  now 
and  then  for  her  than  to  hear  her  always  talk- 
ing like  a  windmill  about  Tonio  that  had  for- 
saken her. 

"  Sometimes  she  had  called  him  a  traitor,  a 
pig;  this  last  was  an  injustice  to  the  education 
he  had  from  comare  Nunzia,  his  mother,  a 
Christian  who  kept  her  house  clean;  so  particu- 
lar she  was,  that  the  hens  might  eat  from  her 
dish  only  after  she  herself  had  eaten.  At  other 
times  Rosina  called  Tonio  her  handsome  sol- 
dier, her  golden  little  orange,  who  knew  how 
to  blow  the  trumpet  so  that  she  seemed  to  hear 
it  far  away  in  Turin,  like  the  voice  of  his  heart. 
Her  talk  was  too  honeyed;  and  a  little  of  such 
is  a  surfeit. 

"  At  the  house  of  Don  Ciccu,  then,  there  was 
great  mourning.     All  the  girls  went  there  to- 


130  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

gether;  we  tore  our  hair,  and  beat  on  our 
breasts  with  our  hands,  and  screamed  until  we 
lost  breath.  In  a  corner  stood  the  table,  with 
certain  mercies  of  heaven  upon  it — dried  figs, 
and  cakes  made  with  honey  and  fine  flour,  and 
wine,  and  toasted  beans,  and  some  of  the  bar- 
ley sugar  from  the  drug  shop.  And  Rosina 
was  dressed  as  if  for  a  holiday;  with  a  dark 
green  skirt  of  wool,  and  an  apron  of  Cosenza 
stamped  leather  tied  with  red  ribbons,  and  a 
red  waist  with  ever  so  many  gilt  buttons,  and 
a  black  jacket  with  gold  embroidery  and 
fringes,  and  on  her  head  a  yellow  silk  kerchief. 
She  had  heavy  gold  hoops  in  her  ears,  with  lit- 
tle hanging  balls  that  did  not  tinkle  any  longer, 
for  she  lay  there  white  and  motionless  as  a 
plaster  image  of  a  saint  before  they  put  a  wash 
of  color  on  it. 

"  The  father,  Don  Ciccu,  stayed  in  the 
shop  and  pounded  drugs,  from  force  of  habit 
and  because  he  was  confused  by  grief  It  is 
true  that  Rosa  was  but  a  poor  thing,  with  the 
heart  of  a  hare,  but  she  was  his  only  daughter, 
and  he  loved  her  from  his  soul.     The  mother 


A  TRUMPET  CALL  I3I 

crouched  in  the  corner  near  the  hearth,  and 
uould  eat  nothing,  not  even  a  raisin;  but  spoke 
now  and  then  of  her  daughter  that  was  like  a 
carnation  flower  at  her  window,  and  a  turtle- 
dove, and  many  other  fine  things.  And  then 
the  other  women  and  the  girls  would  begin  to 
shriek  again,  as  was  suitable.  And  Donna 
Rosina  there  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  on  a 
bier  held  up  by  carpenter's  trestles,  and  can- 
dles lighted  at  her  head  and  feet — it  did  not 
seem  real  that  the  others  should  lament  and 
she  be  silent.  For  while  she  lived  she  had 
been  of  the  first  force  at  screaming,  for  cause 
or  not. 

"  Then  in  the  street  the  little  bell  was  heard 
to  ring,  and  there  came  in  Don  Zeno  with  the 
sacristan  and  the  sacristan's  boy  that  carried 
the  yellow  silk  umbrella  over  the  head  of  the 
priest.  Don  Zeno  raised  his  hands  and  began 
to  mutter  Latin  that  put  us  all  in  awe. 

*'  In  the  fine  midst  of  this,  tra-tiri-tra  !  tra- 
tiri-tra  !  at  the  door,  which  was  flung  open 
without  compliments,  and  Tonio  enters,  with 
the  trumpet  at  his  mouth;  for  he  was  come 


132  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

home  on  leave  of  absence,  without  the  shadow 
of  an  idea  that  he  was  incommoding  a  funeral. 

"  But  the  one  who  spoiled  that  funeral  was 
Rosina  herself.  Puffete !  She  straightened 
up  suddenly,  made  a  leap  from  the  bier,  and 
stood  on  her  feet  astounded. 

"  '  It  is  the  angel  Gabriel  ! '  she  exclaimed, 
*  The  last  trump  !     I  am  in  paradise  ! ' 

"  For  she  was  firmly  persuaded  that  she  was 
dead.  First,  she  had  heard  Tonio  blow  the 
trumpet — a  fine  holy  Gabriel,  indeed,  he  was  ! 
Then  she  had  caught  sight  of  him,  and  began 
to  comprehend  that,  according  to  her  way  of 
looking  at  the  thing,  it  was  better  than  an  an- 
gel of  paradise,  for  it  was  her  Tonio  in  flesh 
and  bones.      They  ran  into  each  other's  arms. 

"  Don  Ciccu  came  in  from  the  shop,  all  pow- 
dered with  the  rhubarb  he  was  pounding,  and 
embraced  Tonio  like  a  son.  And  the  mamma, 
Donna  Santuzza,  arose  and  came  out  of  her 
hole  behind  the  oven,  whimpering  this  time  for 
joy,  while  the  other  women  cried,  *  Miracle, 
miracle  ! ' 

"  It  appeared  that  Rosina  was  not  at  all  dead. 


A   TRUMPET   CALL  I33 

if  one  is  to  believe  what  the  doctors  say,  who 
like  to  discredit  sacred  things.  Don  Ciccu  ex- 
plained it  to  be  a  crisis  that  took  a  good  turn 
from  the  fear  of  that  trumpet  call.  At  all 
events,  the  girl  was  cured  from  that  moment; 
there's  no  denying  it. 

"  They  made  a  great  wedding;  people  were 
invited  to  it  even  from  neighboring  towns. 
The  young  men  serenaded  the  pair,  and  Rosa 
scattered  sugar-plums  from  the  balcony,  and 
we  danced  until  midnight  to  the  organette,  in 
the  piazzetta  hung  with  paper  lanterns,  and 
rockets  went  up  as  if  to  give  a  slap  to  the  face 
of  the  moon,  and  squibs  were  fired  so  that  it 
appeared  like  a  battle,  all  in  honor  of  those 
two.  Never  has  been  seen  in  our  town  a  festi- 
val like  that.  And  all  because  of  that  turnip- 
head  of  a  compare  Tonio,  who  would  marry  a 
girl  that  another  would  not  have  looked  at 
twice — a  puny  thing  that  could  do  no  more  than 
make  barley  sugar  and  roll  a  couple  of  pills. 
So  it  is;  in  this  world  one  sees  certain  injus- 
tices. 

"  And  look  at  Donna  Rosa  now,  vossigno- 


134  A   TRUMPET   CALL 

ria!  From  a  reed  of  the  river  that  she  was,  she 
is  become  a  great  cabbage  of  the  vegetable 
garden.  And  so  many  troubles  of  children 
under  her  feet  !  It  is  a  confusion  unspeakable 
in  her  house;  she  has  no  judgment,  so  that  it 
appears  like  a  pigsty.  And  her  hens  always  in 
the  middle  of  the  road;  and  the  few  rags  that 
she  washes  hung  from  the  balcony  to  flap  in 
the  face  of  people.  And  who  knows  how  com- 
pare Tonio's  soup  is  made  or  his  trousers 
patched  }  He,  poor  fellow,  carries  her,  so  to 
say,  in  the  palms  of  his  hands;  it  is  really  a  pity 
to  see  how  fond  he  is  of  that  woman.  Never 
scolds  him,  says  he.  Better  if  she  did.  Rub- 
bish they  are,  and  will  be — that  family.  And 
that  is  why  I  say  that,  to  see  her  sit  there  idle, 
looking  at  the  sky  like  a  hen  before  the  rain,  I 
would  like  to  clap  together  the  shutters  of  my 
window  and  take  her  away  from  before  my 
eyes.  My  man,  on  the  contrary,  can  boast  that 
he  always  finds  a  dish  of  hot  broth  before  the 
embers  when  he  comes  home  from  work,  and 
his  clothes  are  mended  to  appear  new.  You 
can  ask  him  if  it  is  not  true,  vossignoria,  and 


A   TRUMPET   CALL  I35 

he  will  willingly  tell  you  that  he  has  a  wife  that 
lets  him  lack  nothing.  If  not,  I'll  make  him 
hear  reason  with  the  broomstick  !  " 

The  signora  took  advantage  of  a  moment  of 
silence  on  the  part  of  comare  Sarinato  explain 
her  wishes  in  regard  to  the  web  of  cloth  char- 
acteristic of  that  part  of  the  country,  and  then 
departed.  "  Alas  !  "  she  thought,  while  re- 
turning in  the  carriage  that  'had  brought  her 
from  Cosenza,  "  even  in  these  remote  villages 
of  Calabria,  among  these  honest  and  simple 
peasants,  are  sometimes  to  be  found  envy  and 
evil  tongues." 


PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 


PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

"Za  vie  chez  ces  Jlammes  ail/es,  le  colibri,  foiseaumouche, 
est  si  brAlante,  si  intense,  qu'elle  brave  tons  les poisons." 

MiCHELET. 

npHE  heat  of  the  Southern  sun,  that  was 
-^  the  life  of  the  garden  with  its  alleys  of 
lemon  and  orange  trees,  its  roses  and  jasmines, 
fell  with  a  strong  glare  upon  the  pink  outer 
walls  of  a  villa  a  few  miles  distant  from  the 
city  of  Naples.  Only  the  most  discreet  rays, 
however,  and  these  tempered  by  a  system  of 
Venetian  blinds  and  curtains,  were  allowed  to 
penetrate  into  the  room  where  the  Countess 

Antonietta  G was  endeavoring  to  reward 

with  pleasant  chat  the  inconvenience  caused  to 

her  uncle,  the  Marquis  Onofrio  S ,  by  the 

sudden  and  somewhat  peremptory  invitation 
which  had  brought  him  from  Rome  to  Naples. 
She  was  a  matron  in  the  redundant  beauty  of  the 


140  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

autumn  of  her  life — after  all,  not  without  its 
moments  which  resemble  those  of  the  spring- 
time. The  Marquis  Onofrio,  his  patrician  head 
white  as  silver,  wore  his  sixty  years  like  an 
order  of  merit.  He  was  admirably  preserved 
in  person;  and,  morally,  had  attained  to  that 
tolerant  cynicism  which  is  the  chemical  result 
of  disillusions  and  a  genial  temper.  It  would 
be  too  much  to  assert  that  the  Marquis  did  not 
regret  the  necessity  of  leaving  Rome  in  its 
most  beautiful  season,  and  the  pleasures  of  his 
club,  a  pair  of  horses  which  he  had  almost  de- 
cided to  buy,  and  a  new  acquaintance  who 
proved  amiable  under  defeat  at  tresette.  But 
the  claims  of  family  are  not  to  be  disregarded; 
and  the  Marquis  Onofrio  was  in  duty  bound  to 
betake  himself  to  Naples,  to  witness  the  civil 
and  religious  ceremonies  which  were  to  unite 
in  marriage  his  grandnephew.  Count  Alfredo, 
and  Miss  Emily  Colburn,  of  New  York,  United 
States  of  America. 

Curious  taste,  that  of  Cristoforo  Colombo, 
who  would  perforce  go  to  discover  another 
hemisphere  without  giving  himself  a  thought 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I4I 

how  this  new,  semi-barbaric  world  was  to  over- 
turn the  traditions  of  the  older  society !  Yet — 
let  us  be  just,  even  to  our  predecessors — who 
ever  could  have  predicted  a  Miss  Emily  Col- 
burn  ?  "  Insoimna"  concluded  the  silent  re- 
flections of  the  Marquis  Onofrio,  "  we  will 
hear  what  my  excellent  niece  has  to  say  about 
the  affair." 

At  that  moment  she  spoke.  "  Dear  uncle," 
said  the  Countess  Antonietta,  "  I  appreciate 
the  sacrifice  that  you  make  in  leaving  Rome." 

The  Marquis  half  closed  his  eyes,  slightly 
shook  his  head,  and  united  the  tips  of  the  fin- 
gers of  his  two  hands,  plump  and  well-kept, 
like  the  hands  of  an  elegant  ecclesiastic. 

"  Your  political  circle,  your  club,  your  com- 
modious apartment,  your  invaluable  major- 
domo,  and  your  game  of  tresettc — you  have 
turned  your  back  on  them  for  my  sake.  How 
can  I  repay  your  goodness  .-*  " 

"  Amuse  me  with  a  story,  my  dear;  you 
formerly  could  narrate  in  an  enviable  manner. 
What  is  there  of  news  in  Naples  .■*  " 

"  I  fear  that  I  may  have  lost  my  gift  as  a 


142  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

story-teller.  Nevertheless,  shall  I  tell  you  the 
tale — in  strictest  confidence,  as  to  a  confessor 
— of  the  marriage  of  my  son  Alfredo,  or  rather 
of  the  events  which  have  preceded  the  cere- 
mony of  to-morrow  ? " 

'*  I  can  trust  you  not  to  bore  me,  dear  Anto- 
nietta;  I  trained  you  too  well  in  your  youth," 
said  her  uncle.  "  I  shall  be  much  interested  in 
what  you  will  tell  me." 

The  Countess  was  not  one  of  those  women 
who  are  slaves  to  a  busy  idleness;  she  made 
no  movement  toward  the  basket  of  satin-lined 
osier  which  held  her  embroidery;  but,  laying 
one  hand  in  the  other,  began  her  narrative, 
while  the  Marquis  Onofrio,  with  a  murmured 
apology,  permitted  himself  a  mild  cigar. 

"To  begin,  dear  uncle,  I  must  assure  you 
that  Alfredo  is  the  best  of  sons,  and  has 
caused  me  no  anxieties  except  by  his  youth- 
ful enthusiasms.  A  trifle  of  socialism,  which 
extends  even  to  the  dumb  creation — he  is  al- 
ways reading  //  Zoofilo,  and  has  distinguished 
himself  as  the  champion  of  overloaded  don- 
keys— a  sentiment  of  universal  benevolence,  a 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I43 

nature  too  impressionable  for  his  own  peace; 
my  boy  is  charming,  but  sometimes  also  he 
fatigues  me  a  little,  a  very  little." 

"  At  twenty  years,  what  would  you  have  ?  " 
commented  the  uncle  Onofrio. 

"  I  confess  that  I  have  feared  to  find  myself 
one  fine  day  mother-in-law  to  some  impossi- 
ble young  woman,  a  peasant  from  our  estates 
on  the  Tyrrhene  sea-coast,  a  Russian  Nihilist, 
an  English  miss.  When  my  Alfredo  was  on 
board  his  ship,  the  ironclad  Lodoiska,  only 
then  I  have  felt  myself  quite  safe.  It  is  true, 
there  are  the  sirens  in  the  sea — but  one  does  it 
better  nowadays.  If  Alfredo  were  to  hear 
them  sing,  he  would  criticise,  *  C'est  magni- 
fique,  mais  ce  n'est  pas — Wagner  !  '  Oh,  he  is 
immensely  modern — of  his  own  century,  my 
son  !  Ebbene,  to  raise  the  curtain  upon  our 
recent  domestic  drama.  You  must  know,  un- 
cle, that  when,  three  months  since,  the  Lodois- 
ka  came  into  port,  her  commander  had  the 
unlucky  inspiration  to  give  a  fete  on  board. 
Naturally,  when  all  the  people,  possible  and 
impossible,  of  Neapolitan    high  life  were  in- 


144  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

vited,  we  were  not  omitted.  I  accepted  the 
invitation,  if  only  to  see  the  enjoyment  of  my 
son  and  of  the  son  of  my  sister,  De  Alvares, 
who  is  here  at  Naples  for  his  studies  of  law. 
You  have  seen  too  many  fetes,  zio;  I  leave 
you  to  imagine  the  music,  the  colored  lan- 
terns, the  flowers,  the  electric  lights,  the  flags, 
the  pretty  women  and  their  cavaliers,  official 
and  civilian,  and  the  unforeseen  tableaux  when 
the  rockets  exploded.  But  what  you  cannot 
imagine  without  the  help  of  my  description, 
aided  by  this  photograph — which,  after  all, 
merely  maligns  her  in  black  and  white — is  the 
extreme  beauty  of  a  young  girl  who  was  one  of 
the  guests.  She  was  of  a  rare  type;  one  rec- 
ognized her  as  American — more  precisely, 
from  New  York.  She  was  very  slender,  with 
delicious  unaccented  curves  of  shoulder  and 
waist;  her  movements  were  supple  and  swift 
as  the  leap  of  a  flame.  Her  complexion  was 
of  most  delicate  pallor,  with  a  pink  color  that 
came  and  went  upon  the  cheeks.  Her  large 
eyes  were  blue,  brilliant  as  sapphires;  her  hair 
was  light  cendre,  with  reflections  of  her  father's 


PRINCESS  HUMMING-BIRD  I45 

presumable  gold  mines.  Her  hands  and  feet 
were  microscopic;  her  diamonds  exaggerated, 
monumental,  colossal.  Her  dress — I  will  not 
fall  into  details — was  a  skirt  of  marine-blue 
velvet,  purposely  of  the  greatest  simplicity  of 
design,  with  a  barbaric  bodice  made  entirely  of 
the  plumage  of  humming-birds.  She  seemed  a 
living  rainbow;  she  flashed  around  her  lights 
of  ruby,  sapphire,  amethyst,  beryl,  emerald, 
and  opal. 

"  If  I  was  dazzled  by  her  as  she  went  by  in  a 
waltz,  upon  the  arm  of  Alfredo,  judge  what 
happened  to  my  son  !  As  soon  as  my  optic 
nerve  recovered  itself  from  the  shock  of  that 
resplendent  bodice,  I  instantly  began  to  in- 
struct myself  in  the  art  of  being  a  mother-in- 
law.  The  great  victories  and  defeats  of  a  wom- 
an's life  are  apt  to  take  place  in  a  ballroom. 
I  surrendered  at  discretion  to  destiny.  Soon  I 
perceived  some  one  bowing  before  me.  It  was 
the  American  consul.  After  the  first  conven- 
tional phrases  were  exchanged,  I  asked  him, 
'  Pray  tell  me  who  is  that  beautiful  compatriot 
of  yours,  dancing  with  my  son  .-* '      He  reas- 


146  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

sured  me;  I  forgave  him  the  fine  smile  that 
recognized  my  maternal  anxieties. 
'  "  '  Signora,'  he  said,  'that  is  Miss  Emily  Col- 
burn,  of  New  York;  a  most  charming  girl  in 
the  full  extent  of  the  term;  accomplished,  of 
delightful  antecedents.  She  is  at  present  trav- 
eling in  Europe  under  care  of  her  relative.  Dr. 
Colburn.'  After  that  I  gave  myself  no  more 
trouble.  What  is  gained  in  a  conflict  with  des- 
tiny .■*  Also,  these  Americans  are  of  whatever 
rank  one  wishes  to  believe  them.  So  I  ac- 
cepted the  arm  of  a  German  baron — I  spare 
you  the  consonants  of  his  illustrious  name — 
and  made  a  little  promenade.  Everywhere  we 
met  my  son  with  the  beautiful  American. 
Fernan  de  Alvares,  standing  alone  near  a 
gangway,  whispered  as  I  passed,  *  Aunt,  we 
must  take  care  of  Alfredo.'  Finally  my  grand 
German  left  me  seated  near  some  persons  not 
of  my  acquaintance;  and  one  of  these,  at  my 
side,  was  a  woman  of  perhaps  fifty  years  of 
age,  who  wore  a  black  silk  gown  of  excellent 
quality,  but  so  ill-fitting  that  one  understood 
that  she  must  be  a  person  not  only  eminent  in 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I47 

respectability  but  also  in  erudition.  She  was 
either  English  or  American,  I  decided,  uncer- 
tain between  the  two  nationalities.  I  addressed 
a  few  words  to  her  in  Italian,  to  which  she  re- 
plied with  sufficient  accuracy  of  grammar,  but 
with  an  extraordinary  accent  and  literal  ren- 
dering of  the  English  idiom.  Knowing  a  little 
of  her  language,  I  resolved  to  sacrifice  myself 
A  sufficient  reward  was  the  relief  of  that  good 
woman.  In  a  little  while  came  my  son  with 
the  inevitable  Miss  Emily  Colburn.  I  could 
remember  her  name,  for  with  her  quick  move- 
ments and  her  bodice  of  feathers  of  humming- 
birds she  herself  seemed  like  a  colibri. 

*' '  Oh,  mamma,'  says  my  Alfredo,  '  I  was 
searching  for  you,  in  order  to  present  Dr.  Col- 
burn— this  is  her  niece.  Miss  Emily  Colburn — 
and  I  find  you  already  acquainted.' 

"  I  looked  about  me  to  salute  the  signor  dot- 
tore,  and  beheld  the  woman  with  the  black  silk 
dress  smiling  and  bowing  as  she  said,  '  I  sup- 
pose I  ought  to  have  named  myself  before — 
Dr.  Anastasia  Colburn,  of  Boston;  and  this  is 
my  young  relative  from  New  York.'     Then  the 


148  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

little  Colburn  plumed  herself  and  turned  her 
pretty  head  toward  her  aunt  and  then  to  me, 
with  all  her  feathers  sparkling  under  the  elec- 
tric light;  and  my  Alfredo  appeared  immersed 
in  contentment. 

"  *  Oh  me  !  '  1  said  to  myself;  '  mother-in- 
law  to  an  aviary,  and  heaven  knows  what  re- 
lation to  a  feminine  medical  diploma  !  '  I  tried 
to  consider  myself  a  false  augur,  to  smile  in  my 
own  face,  and  to  discredit  my  own  predictions. 
Ah,  they  are  realized,  all  of  them;  and  I  as- 
sure you,  dear  uncle,  I  ask  nothing  better. 
The  admirable  Miss  Anastasia  and  I  became 
friends.  I  stipulated  not  to  be  obliged  to  call 
her  doctor.  At  all  costs,  I  reasoned,  we  must 
be  amiable.  If  later  I  have  to  interfere  in  this 
affair  of  Alfredo's,  better  to  do  so  from  the  po- 
sition of  a  friend  to  these  American  ladies,  and 
of  an  affectionate  mother  to  my  boy." 

"  You  were  right,  mia  cara^'  said  the  Mar- 
quis Onofrio.  "It  is  a  virtue  of  diplomacy  to 
avoid  needless  differences." 

"  Yes.  I  invited  the  ladies  to  my  Thursday 
evenings,  resolved   that   Alfredo    should    not 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I49 

have  the  spur  of  opposition  to  his  love.  But  it 
was  not  easy  to  pacify  my  nephew  Fernan.  He 
has  doubled  the  dose  of  aristocratic  prejudice 
in  being  the  son  of  a  Spanish  noblerhan,  and 
he  nearly  quarreled  with  me  because  I  would 
not  interfere,  separate  Alfredo  from  the  blond 
American,  and  command  him,  under  penal- 
ty of  my  extreme  displeasure,  to  marry  the 
Contessina  Sofia,  with  whose  mamma  I  had  al- 
ready exchanged  certain  preliminary  phrases. 
Fernan,  as  I  have  just  said,  was  ready  to  quar- 
rel with  me;  and  Alfredo,  on  his  part,  com- 
plained that  his  cousin's  manner  toward  him 
was  altered.  Meanwhile  we  saw  the  American 
ladies  very  often.  They  drove  with  me  in  the 
Via  Roma  and  in  the  country,  where  Emily 
declared  that  she  '  simply  adored  those  deli- 
cious pink  villas  that  seemed  modeled  in 
strawberry  ice.'  The  young  men  rode  beside 
the  carriage;  and  Emily,  who  is  immensely  in- 
telligent, used  a  thousand  little  arts  of  coquetry 
to  please  Fernan  de  Alvares,  whom  she  had 
at  once  recognized  as  her  adversary.  Alfredo 
was  not  unhappy  on  this  account,  for  Emily 


I50  PRINXESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

gave  him  such  glances  that  to  be  discontented 
would  have  proved  him  a  monster  of  ingrati- 
tude. Miss  Anastasia  was  much  interested  in 
the  excavations  at  Pompeii;  she  smuggled  off, 
in  the  depth  of  the  pocket  of  her  gown,  certain 
little  antiquities,  and  later  threw  them  away, 
saying  that  her  conscience  would  not  allow  her 
to  keep  them. 

"  One  day  the  blow  fell.  I  do  not  know  how 
the  classic  Damocles  felt  in  the  case  of  the 
suspended  sword;  for  my  part,  I  prefer  certain- 
ties. But  to  return  to  modern  history.  My 
Alfredo  came  to  me  with  the  confession  that 
he  had  spoken  such  words  to  Miss  Emily  that 
nothing  remained  but  for  me  to  seek  Dr.  Col- 
burn  and  formally  ask  the  hand  of  her  niece 
for  my  son.  I  could  not  refuse;  really,  I  had 
no  arguments  except  those  that  had  not  availed 
when  the  affair  consisted  of  six  dances  and  a 
spray  of  gardenia,  I  went,  saw,  and  was  con- 
quered when  that  woman  from  Boston  calmly 
said  she  did  not  know  how  Emily  felt  about  it 
— she  left  all  those  things  to  her  niece.  Emily 
could  take  care  of  herself,  and  whenever  she 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  151 

had  been  engaged  to  a  young  man  it  was  her 
own  choice,  and  when  she  broke  the  engage- 
ment she  probably  had  her  reasons,  Miss  An- 
astasia  told  me." 

"  Just  heavens  !  "  exclaimed  the  Marquis 
Onofrio. 

•'  I  remained  petrified,"  continued  his  niece; 
"  but  at  that  moment  Emily  and  Alfredo  en- 
tered, having  met  in  the  street — Emily  walked 
to  the  side  of  her  aunt,  kissed  her  mechani- 
cally, and  informed  her  that  she  was  engaged 
to  the  Count  Alfredo.  It  was  my  son  whose 
eyelids  dropped  to  meet  his  blushes. 

"  '  Well,'  said  the  extraordinary  Miss  Anas- 
tasia,  '  I'm  glad  this  is  all  settled,  my  dear,  for 
now  I  can  go  right  away  to  Berlin  to  hear  the 
anatomical  lectures,  and  leave  you  here  in  the 
pension.  The  landlady  seems  like  a  nice,  kind 
person;  and  now  that  you  have  a  young  gen- 
tleman to  escort  you  around,  you  will  not  miss 
me,  I  guess.' " 

"  Perdiana  !  "  shuddered  the  Marquis  Ono- 
frio; "  I  am  indebted  to  you  for  a  new  sensa- 
tion, niece." 


152  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

"  Oh,  I  believe  it  !  "  returned  the  Countess. 
"  Even  Miss  Emily  had  the  good  taste  to  ap- 
pear surprised.  My  poor  Alfredo  turned  upon 
me  a  despairing  glance,  which  it  would  have 
been  cruel  to  disregard. 

"  '  Dear  madam,'  said  I,  '  if  really  you  must 
leave  Naples,  at  least  let  me  take  my  future 
daughter-in-law  to^my  home.'  I  assure  you, 
Uncle  Onofrio,  I  experienced  in  anticipation 
all  the  fatigues  of  chaperoning  an  American 
girl;  but  what  sacrifices  will  not  a  mother 
make  for  her  only  son  !  And  then,  Dr.  Col- 
burn's  festal  toilette  of  the  same  eternal  black 
silk  had  become  such  a  weariness  to  me  that 
the  prospect  of  its  removal  to  Berlin  infused  in 
me  new  courage.  Briefly,  then,  the  aunt  de- 
parted, and  the  niece  and  six  trunks,  each  of 
the  half-dozen  nearly  as  large  as  the  ironclad 
Lodoiska,  were  at  my  villa.  Of  course  the 
young  men  were  lodging  at  Naples — Alfredo 
upon  his  ship,  Fernan  at  the  house  of  his  pro- 
fessor— but  they  visited  the  villa  daily.  When 
alone  with  me,  the  little  Emily  proved  herself 
Jill  that  I  could  wish.  Of  course  I  inquired  most 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  1 53 

delicately  into  those  broken  engagements  of 
which  Dr.  Colburn  had  spoken,  and  Emily  ex- 
plained everything,  which,  after  all,  was  little 
or  nothing.  Mere  diversions  and  compliments 
of  children — the  parents  not  at  all  concerned 
in  the  matter — a  little  kiss  or  two  with  the  sur- 
face of  the  lips,  and  an  incredible  amount  of 
bonbons  and  cotillon  favois.  At  all  events,  zio, 
I  remained  in  love  with  my  little  daughter-in- 
law  of  the  future.  In  the  quiet  hours  when  we 
read,  or  embroidered,  or  walked  in  the  garden, 
Emily  wore  costumes  of  the  most  expensive 
simplicity,  of  ostensible  batiste  or  muslin,  but 
covered  with  fine  Valenciennes  laces." 

"  Oh,  I  pardon  you  the  list  of  her  wardrobe," 
interrupted  the  Marquis  Onofrio. 

"  She  possessed  not  only  the  famous  bodice, 
but  also  a  mantle,  a  fan,  a  bonnet,  a  toque,  of 
humming-bird  feathers,  and  never  failed  to  put 
on  one  or  more  of  these  brilliant  articles  when- 
ever the  young  men  were  expected.  One  day 
I  heard  Alfredo  remonstrate  with  her,  as  they 
walked  along  a  path  shaded  by  lemon-trees, 
while  Fernan  and  I  sat  near  upon  a  garden-seat. 


154  PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

'■''Carina,'  said  my  son,  'these  feathers  do 
not  at  all  please  me.  I  wish,  Einilmccia  viia, 
that  you  would  not  wear  them  any  more.  It 
seems  to  me  a  barbarous  and  cruel  adornment. 
They  were  once  living  birds,  bright  and  happy 
as  you  are;  each  little  feather  used  to  quiver 
and  shine  with  delight  as  the  pretty  creatures 
darted  through  the  American  forests,  under 
great  pendent  flowers,  bells  of  which  the  music 
was  perfume.  Now  they  are  dead  I  cannot 
see  you  wear  the  poor  little  victims,  Emily." 

"  She  smiled  enchantingly.  '  I  didn't  kill 
them,  Alfredo.' 

"'Yes— but— ' 

"  '  No,  you  need  not  say  one  word  about  it, 
for  I  want  so  much  to  wear  my  birds.  I'm  tre- 
mendously fond  of  humming-birds.  Do  you 
know,  they  call  me  La  Colibri  at  the  club — 
Cousin  Fernan  said  so.' 

" '  Reason  the  more,'  murmured  Alfredo, 
displeased. 

"  *  And  they  all  came  from  a  forest  that  be- 
longs to  my  papa,  in  South  America,'  contin- 
ued  Emily,    with   great   cheerfulness.      '  The 


PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD  I  55 

girls  at  home  have  nothing  like  it.  Look  at 
these  feathers,  and  these  little  blue  and  green 
ones;  this  tiny  tuft  is  from  the  head  of  a  sort  of 
humming-bird  that,  they  say,  builds  its  nest  in 
the  upas-trees  of  the  Antilles,  and  of  course 
that  must  be  awfully  dangerous  for  the  hunters. 
Papa  had  all  these  birds  killed  on  purpose  for 
me.  Wasn't  he  kind  ?  They  are  killed  with 
air-guns,  I  believe.  It  doesn't  hurt  them;  at 
any  rate,  they  don't  mind  it  now.' 

"  My  Alfredo  looked  very  serious.  '  Emily,' 
said  he,  *  it  is  a  pain  to  me  to  have  you  asso- 
ciated with  an  act  of  cruelty;  I  forbid — '  The 
expression  of  her  face  ought  to  have  warned 
the  foolish  boy;  but  to  make  quite  safe,  I 
screamed  and  declared  I  had  seen  a  snake. 
This  brought  Alfredo  in  a  moment  to  my  side, 
so  that  I  could  whisper  to  him,  *  Hush — if 
really  you  would  be  unhappy  without  her. 
She  is  capable  of  breaking  the  engagement. 
After  marriage  you  can  forbid  this  bizarre  ca- 
price of  hers.'  Meanwhile  that  coquette  had 
appealed  to  Cousin  Fernan,  as  she  called  him; 
and  he,  as  if  to  increase  the  dissension  between 


156  PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

the  lovers,  had  declared  the  parure  of  feathers 
to  be  most  distinguished  and  becoming." 

"  Oh,  I  warrant  you ! "  said  the  Marquis 
Onofrio.  ''  No  woman  wishes  to  emulate  the 
feat  of  Paganini,  and  play  her  variations  upon 
a  single  string.  She  must  have  two,  at  least,  to 
her  bow.     Feminine,  femmine  !  " 

"  We  soon  reentered  the  house,  "  continued 
the  Countess  Antonietta.  "  A  new  thought 
assailed  my  mind:  did  my  nephew  wish, mere- 
ly from  family  pride,  to  prevent  Alfredo's 
marriage  with  Emily;  or,  on  the  contrary, 
could  he  possibly  be  so  disloyal  to  his  cousin 
as  to  wish  to  become  a  rival .''  I  immediately 
forced  myself  to  acquit  him,  and  to  dismiss  so 
unworthy  a  suspicion.  But  when  a  woman 
once  begins  to  distrust,  she  stops  short  of 
nothing  less  than  the  worst;  and  I  could  not 
cease  to  think  of  Fernan  de  Alvares,  as  he  had 
stood  at  the  side  of  Emily,  turning  in  his  hands 
the  gleaming  toque,  which  she  had  removed 
from  her  head  to  display  its  curious  little  tufts 
of  feathers.  Strangely  enough,  I  found  that  I 
already  began  to  desire  the  marriage  proposed 


PRINCESS  HUMMING-BIRD  1 5/ 

— that  the  incident  which  two  weeks  earlier 
would  have  delighted  me  with  a  prospect  of 
change  in  the  relations  between  my  son  and 
Miss  Emily  now  gave  me  genuine  discomfort. 
Fernan,  observing  my  uneasiness  without  per- 
haps divining  its  cause,  devoted  himself  to  the 
duty  of  attendance  on  his  aunt,  even  to  the 
neglect  of  the  young  lady;  while,  indeed,  it 
was  not  long  before  Alfredo  and  Emily  were 
again  on  the  best  terms. 

"The  superabundant  life  of  Naples  delighted 
my  little  guest;  she  would  go  here  and  there, 
and  I  developed  a  conscientiousness  worthy  of 
the  respectable  Anastasia  in  allowing  no  op- 
portunity to  pass  unimproved.  Dances,  gar- 
den-parties, with  the  British  lawn-tennis,  ex- 
cursions by  land  and  by  water — my  muscular 
system  resents  even  the  memory  of  them.  At 
thirty-nine  years  and  twelve  months,  uncle, 
one  can  hear  music  without  wishing  to  dance. 
Finally  we  betook  ourselves  one  morning  to  the 
Santa  Lucia  district." 

"Ah,  that  is  a  quarter  of  the  city  that  I  have 
never  visited,"  said  the  Marquis  Onofrio.     "  I 


158  PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

find  that  it  is  less  easy  for  me  to  adhere  to  my 
democratic  principles  when  it  is  a  question  of 
breathing  the  odors  of  the  fish  of  yesterday 
and  the  steam  of  the  cabbages  of  to-day.  Your 
description,  Antonietta  mia,  will  convert  those 
prosaic  fumes  into  the  breath  of  roses." 

"Let  us  hope  so.  We  climbed  more  than  one 
of  those  steep  streets  where  the  houses,  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes,  stand  at  irregular  angles 
wherever  they  find  a  foothold  upon  the  vol- 
canic hillside.  Those  houses,  without  air  or 
light,  seem  to  me  uninhabitable;  I  cannot 
wonder  that  the  people  live  on  the  door-steps. 
There,  in  the  street,  the  women  sew,  cook, 
complete  their  toilettes,  tend  their  babies;  the 
men  hammer  metal,  work  at  the  carpenter's 
bench,  mend  nets;  the  children  play,  sleep,  or 
quarrel  over  melon  rinds  and  refuse  tomatoes. 
Above  the  general  noise  rise  the  voices  of 
dealers  in  fish  or  fruit,  and  of  the  acqiiahwle 
who  scream  the  praises  of  their  lemonade  or 
mineral  waters.  The  fishermen  came,  with 
sails  bending  to  a  light  breeze,  and  drew  their 
boats  up  to  the  molo.     They  assumed  magnif- 


PRINCESS  HUMMING-BIRD  1 59 

icent  poses  as  they  dragged  the  nets  out  of  the 
boats.  With  their  red  Phrygian  caps,  bare  sun- 
burnt throats  and  arms,  garments  of  various 
colors  tempered  by  the  salt  water,  they  formed 
fine  groups  as  they  shook  out  and  sorted  the 
contents  of  their  teeming  nets.  The  fish,  a 
twisting,  palpitating,  iridescent  mass  of  rose- 
color  and  dark  blue  and  silver,  tangled  with 
sea-weeds,  rivaled  the  brilliancy  of  Emily's 
humming-birds.  I  could  see  that  these  marine 
splendors  inspired  her  with  some  new  ideal  of  a 
costume;  the  imagination  of  this  young  girl 
naturally  translated  itself  into  a  toilette,  as 
that  of  a  sculptor  into  a  statue,  or  of  a  poet 
into  verse.  And  I  acknowledge,  for  my  part, 
a  debt  of  gratitude  to  her  on  the  occasion  of 
our  visit  to  the  Santa  Lucia  quarter,  for  her 
celestial  beauty  and  her  exquisite  dress.  In 
the  midst  of  all  the  squalor  and  confusion,  she 
might  have  been  the  siren  Parthenope  come  to 
revisit  her  ancient  realm.  Imagine,  Uncle 
Onofrio,the  slender,  lithe  figure  in  a  tight-fitting 
gown  of  greenish-gray  cloth — color  of  the  sea 
in  a  cloudy  day — with    panels   and  revers  of 


l6o  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

white,  embroidered  with  a  design  of  sea-moss- 
es executed  in  silver  thread,  edged  with  a  nar- 
row passementerie  of  Venetian  shells  strung 
also  on  silver  threads.  Her  bonnet,  of  the  in- 
separable humming-birds,  was  a  little  discord- 
ant with  her  toilette  of  a  sea-nymph,  yet  one 
might  fancy  that  the  birds  had  drifted  out 
with  the  land-breeze  and  rested  upon  the 
gold-dusted  head  of  the  siren,  believing  it  to 
be  some  floating  flower  of  the  tropics." 

"Niece,"  said  the  Marquis,  "I  forgive  you 
your  lyric  rhapsody  upon  a  Parisian  fashion- 
plate." 

"  As  we  approached  the  little  inn  where  we 
were  to  take  a  characteristic  breakfast,"  con- 
tinued the  Countess,  "piteous  moans  and  cries 
were  heard,  and  we  saw  before  us  a  little  boy 
of  perhaps  eight  years  old  crawling,  dragging 
himself  painfully  across  the  street.  Emily  flew 
from  my  side,  and,  regardless  of  her  costly 
dress,  was  on  her  knees  to  assist  the  child. 
Also  Alfredo  ran  to  help  him.  '  CDs'  hai,  pov- 
erinof  asked  Emily;  and  the  answer,  in 
Neapolitan  dialect,  was  interpreted  by  my  son. 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  l6l 

The  child  said  that  in  trying  to  defend  his  little 
brother  from  some  larger  boys  they  had  struck 
him  with  a  bar  of  iron  snatched  from  a  black- 
smith's bench,  and  broken  his  leg;  the  little 
brother  had  run  to  call  the  mamma.  '  And 
meanwhile  I  die,' said  the  boy,  looking  piteous- 
ly  up  to  the  tearful  eyes  of  Emily.  Alfredo 
sought  in  vain  for  an  idea  that  might  be  of  use. 
Fernan  de  Alvares  observed,  '  Pardon  me,  aunt; 
your  dress  remains  in  peril  of  that  basket  of 
fish  ; '  and  then,  to  the  child,  *  Let  us  under- 
stand each  other,  my  boy;  it  is  a  pity  to  cause 
tears  to  this  young  lady.  For  my  part,  liking 
to  see  her  smile,  I  would  give  a  lira,  a  whole 
lira,  to  whoever  would  dance  for  her  a  good 
tarantella.'  '  You  are  cruel.  Cousin  Fernan,' 
protested  Emily.  *  I  am  clairvoyant,  an  in- 
spired bone-setter,*  rejoined  Fernan,  laughing. 
The  little  martyr  gave  him  a  telegraphic 
glance  of  intelligence,  broke  into  a  delicious 
laugh  that  displayed  thirty-two  white  teeth, 
sat  upright,  whistled  between  his  fingers,  and 
finally  sprang  to  his  feet.  Immediately  his 
younger  brother — there  really  was  that  broth- 


l62  PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

er — came  running  around  a  corner;  the  elder 
caught  up  a  tambourine  from  somewhere,  and 
the  two  began  a  tarantella  that  repaid  looking 
at.  The  fiction  of  the  bad  boys,  the  iron  bar, 
the  defence  of  the  little  brother,  was  pardon- 
able for  the  sake  of  that  superbly  veracious 
dance.  '  My  poor  Alfredo,'  thought  I;  '  always 
at  a  disadvantage  because  you  have  the  mis- 
fortune to  be  serious.  Your  sympathy  with 
Emily's  passing  mood  of  tender  pity  avails  you 
nothing.  Fernan  knows  how  to  make  her 
laugh ! ' " 

"  I  have  observed,"  assented  the  Marquis 
Onofrio,  "that  with  many  American  women 
the  romantic,  melancholy  lover  is  little  appre- 
ciated. If  Ophelia  had  been  American  she 
would  have  been  enamored  of  the  happy  mem- 
ory of  Yorick,  the  fellow  of  infinite  jest,  and 
cared  little  for  the  fine  eyes  of  Prince  Hamlet. 
These  young  ladies  must  be  amused  at  all 
costs,  and  find  a  serious  devotion  a  trifle  un- 
comfortable. I  do  not  say  this  of  all  Ameri- 
cans— my  experience  is  by  no  means  universal," 
finished  Uncle  Onofrio,  modestly. 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  163 

"  Alfredo  saw  his  error,"  pursued  the  Count- 
ess, "  and  finally  retrieved  it,  thanks  to  an 
opportune  guitar,  and  his  charming  tenor  voice. 
He  sang,  to  his  own  accompaniment,  some 
popular  songs.  Men  and  women  gathered  un- 
der the  window  of  the  inn,  and  Alfredo  dis- 
pensed to  the  crowd  tumblers  of  sour  wine  with 
the  grace  of  a  Ganymede  out  of  a  situation  ! 
After  that,  Fernan  might  devote  himself  to  his 
aunt,  ecco!  Not  to  weary  you,  caro  zio,  the  days 
passed  in  a  thousand  diversions,  and  the  little 
Emily,  quick  to  seize  new  ideas,  conformed 
herself  more  and  more  to  my  suggestions.  She 
proved  herself  docile,  affectionate,  generous — " 

*'  Ouf !  Another  catalogue  }  I  take  her  vir- 
tues for  granted.  I  prefer  to  hear  about  her 
caprices,"  said  the  Marquis,  with  ingratitude. 

"It  would  be  a  catalogue  indeed  to  give 
points  to  that  of  a  museum,"  returned  his  niece. 
"  For  example,  she  was  immutably  tenacious 
of  her  humming-birds,  except  upon  one  occa- 
sion when  she  appeared  dressed  in  a  costume 
of  gray  velvet,  with  facings  of  rose-colored 
.  moire,  and  bordered  with  the  breasts  of  white 


164  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

doves.  '  Were  you  Venus  herself,'  cried  Alfredo, 
'you  should  not  wear  that  murderous  trophy!' 
I  expected  from  the  fair  American  a  formal 
declaration  of  independence,  a  Fourth  of  July 
of  the  toilette,  or  at  least  a  crisis  of  nerves.  I 
laid  my  hand  on  the  stopper  of  my  bottle  of 
acqua  di  Felsina.  Nothing  of  the  sort;  merely 
the  cheerful  reply:  '  Why,  certainly !  I  will  go 
right  away  and  change  my  dress,  if  you  say  so. 
You  are  horridly  particular,  Alfredo  inio;  but 
this  gown  is  rather  heavy,  and  I  would  really 
rather  wear  something  else.'  Fernan  shrugged 
his  shoulders  as  she  left  the  room.  I  no  longer 
comprehended  the  attitude  of  my  nephew.  He 
had  ceased  to  remonstrate  with  Alfredo  or  with 
me  against  the  proposed  marriage  with  a  young 
girl  who  would  bring  no  new  patent  of  nobility 
into  the  family.  After  a  final  bitter  phrase  or 
two,  pardonable  to  his  pride  of  a  noble  of 
Madrid  and  of  Naples,  he  appeared  to  give 
himself  peace,  and  to  share  the  diversions  of 
Alfredo  and  Emily. 

"Meanwhile,  to  my  affright,  Emily  seemed 
far  from  well.     She  was  pale  and  languid;  tliQ 


PRINCESS   HUxMMING-BIRD  165 

bodice  of  humming-bird  plumes  had  to  be  made 
smaller  to  suit  her  fragile  waist.  *  And  it  was 
made  only  four  weeks  ago  for  the  ball  on  board 
the  Lodoiska,'  she  would  complain.  At  first  I 
attributed  her  indisposition  to  the  excitement 
of  her  betrothal  to  Alfredo,  and  the  fatigues 
consequent  upon  the  fetes  and  theatres  which 
we  attended.  Yet  Emily  had  triumphantly 
enjoyed  every  gayety  of  two  seasons  in  New 
York  society.  It  was  not  likely  that  Naples 
would  overtax  her  brilliant  vitality.  I  suggested 
remaining  at  home  from  various  festivities;  and 
day  after  day  the  poor  little  girl  preferred  to 
rest  in  a  great  arm-chair  in  my  room, while  Al- 
fredo read  aloud  to  us.  I  was  charmed  to  see 
how  the  domestic  virtues  blossomed  in  the 
character  of  my  son.  Do  not  smile,  Uncle  Ono- 
frio — you,  an  impenitent  bachelor,  have  had  no 
occasion  to  practise  them — but  it  was  a  pleasure 
to  me,  I  assure  you,  to  see  that  Alfredo  would 
know  how  to  take  care  of  this  delicate  little 
woman.  Also  Fernan  was  solicitous  in  his  at- 
tentions to  her.  He  had  been  fortunate  in  his 
choice  of  bonbons  for  her  acceptance;  and  now 


l66  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

he  came  to  my  aid,  for  when  I  tried  in  vain  to 
induce  the  child  to  eat  as  much  as  would  have 
satisfied  one  of  the  humming-birds,  her  proto- 
types, Fernan  would  produce  a  satin  bonbon- 
niere — always  of  new  and  fanciful  shape — and 
tell  '  Cousin  Emily'  half  of  an  amusing  story, 
the  sequel  contingent  on  her  taking  a  few 
chocolates.  '  Fernan  is  awfully  kind  to  me,' 
she  said.  And  poor  Alfredo,  distracted  with 
anxiety  for  his  little  love,  no  longer  seemed 
capable  of  amusing  her;  he  was  absorbed  in 
melancholy,  and  dark  circles  around  his  eyes — • 
ink-saucers,  our  good  Neapolitans  call  them — 
attested  sleepless  nights.  The  controversy  re- 
garding the  humming-bird  plumage  was  given 
up,  although  Emily  wore  them  constantly,  en- 
couraged by  the  praise  of  Fernan  and  the  si- 
lence of  Alfredo.  Meanwhile  her  condition 
became  worse  and  worse,  and  I  began  to  think 
of  disturbing  Dr.  Anastasia  Colburn  at  her 
studies  in  Berlin.  The  most  eminent  physi- 
cians in  Naples  had  been  consulted;  and  one 
of  them,  an  Englishman,  told  me  plainly  that 
everything  indicated  a  case  of  poisoning  by 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  167 

means  of  minute,  often-repeated  doses  of  arsenic. 
*  It  is  absurd  to  ask  you,  signora,'  said  he,  '  if 
the  young  lady  can  have  an  enemy  capable  of 
wishing  her  death  ?  So  beautiful  a  rival  has, 
no  doubt,  awakened  much  envy  among  the 
Neapolitan  signorine;  but  these  rosebuds  use 
no  weapons  deadlier  than  their  thorny  little 
tongues.  It  can  only  be  some  undetermined 
disease  of  malarial  origin.'" 

"  Oh,  I  recognize  him  there  ! "  cried  the  Mar- 
quis Onofrio;  "a  little  more,  and  he  would 
have  given  the  blame  to  Roman  fever,  caught 
in  passing  by  in  a  railroad  train.  If  an  English- 
man or  an  American  has  toothache,  gout,  a 
sprained  ankle  even,  the  Roman  fever  is  the 
cause  of  it.  And  if  they  suffer  sometimes  from 
malaria,  is  it  the  fault  of  Rome  }  To  walk  on 
the  shady  side  of  the  street,  challenge  the  night 
dews  and  Heaven  knows  what  currents  of  air, 
retain  their  Anglo-Saxon  modes  of  life — it  is 
like  ringing  the  door-bell  of  Fever,  and  then 
complaining  that  they  find  her  at  home  !" 

The  Countess  Antonietta  nodded  assent  to 
this  little  tirade,  and  resumed  her  story.  **  Day 


l68  PRINCESS    HUMMING-BIRD 

by  day  my  poor  little  Emily  faded  visibly.  Her 
pallid  face,  where  her  great  eyes  had  already 
assumed  the  dim  lustre  of  the  eyes  of  a  dying 
bird,  the  faded  rose  of  her  lips,  her  little  hands, 
pearly,  serai-transparent — the  contrast  with 
her  former  self,  full  of  delicate,  vivid  energy, 
was  too  sad.  The  shadow  of  her  constantly 
increasing  illness  had  fallen  upon  the  house- 
hold. My  poor  Alfredo  struggled  bravely  to 
keep  above  the  waves  of  his  trouble,  that  at 
least  he  might  sustain  to  the  last  his  little  Em- 
ily. I  was  deeply  afflicted,  and  weighed  down 
with  the  responsibility  of  this  precious  life,  that 
seemed  fast  slipping  away  from  us.  Fernan 
was  reserved  in  his  grief,  and  unremitting  in 
his  attentions  to  us  all. 

"One  day  Alfredo  came  to  me  with  a  white 
face  and  an  expression  in  his  eyes  that  I  had 
never  before  seen  there.  The  three  young  peo- 
ple had  been  in  the  garden,  my  maid  in  attend- 
ance on  Emily,  and  from  my  window  I  had  at- 
mired  the  group,  Emily  like  a  fairy  princess  in 
her  brilliant  mantle  of  plumage,  as  she  rested 
upon  the  skins  of  some  wolves  that  Alfredo  once 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  169 

on  a  time  shot  in  Hungary;  the  young  men 
were  arranging  bouquets  under  her  capricious 
direction,  and  Marianna  solemnly  knitting  at  a 
little  distance.  Then  Fernan  had  ridden  away 
to  visit  a  neighbor — the  mamma  of  the  Con- 
tessina  Sofia  already  mentioned;  soon  after- 
ward, Emily  had  become  exhausted,  and  Mari- 
anna had  brought  her  into  the  house.  And  my 
poor  Alfredo  came  to  seek  comfort  from  his 
mother.  I  watched  him  with  some  anxiety  as 
he  sat  beside  me  in  restless  silence.  Suddenly 
he  broke  forth  with  excited  words: 

"  *  I  shall  have  to  kill  Fernan;  I  hate  myself 
for  the  evil  thought.' 

"  '  No,  no,  caroy  said  I;  '  you  are  not  yourself 
when  you  say  that.  Perhaps  he  cannot  help 
loving  Emily.  She  is  a  trifle  coquettish,  for  all 
she  is  so  good  and  sweet;  and  more  probably 
he  feels  for  her  only  the  affection  of  a  future 
cousin.' 

"  'Affection  ! '  repeated  my  son,  with  a  wild 
look;  'if  it  were  only  that — if  Fernan  loved 
her,  and  she  him — if,  I  say,  she  loved  him — I 
would  give  her  up  to  him,  and  then — blow  out 


I/O  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

my  brains.  I  would  have  her  happy,  at  all 
costs — except  that  of  my  living  to  see  her  his 
wife.  But,  mamma,  it  is  worse  than  that.  Fer- 
nan  is  poisoning  my  Emily  with  his  accursed 
bonbons ! * 

"  *  Oh,  be  silent ! '  I  cried — '  my  sister's  son  ! 
your  cousin  Fernan  ! ' 

"  '  Yes,  your  sister's  son.  Think  of  Aunt 
Rafaella's  pride  of  rank,  that  led  her  to  marry 
Don  Ramon  de  Alvares.  Has  she  been  happy 
with  him  .-'  Has  he  not  been  a  stern,  unkind 
husband  to  her."*  Who  knows  what  cruel 
nature  Fernan  may  have  inherited?' 

"  '  Don  Ramon  is  not  amiable,'  I  answered, 
trying  to  soothe  him,  '  but  he  is  incapable  of 
crime,  or  even  an  action  unbecoming  an  hon- 
est man.  And  I  hope  that  Fernan  has  no 
worse  inheritance  than  an  overdose  of  aristo- 
cratic prejudice.' 

"  *  He  told  me  at  the  beginning,'  insisted 
Alfredo,  '  that  he  should  do  all  in  his  power  to 
prevent  my  marriage  with  Emily.  He  is  a 
poisoner  !  No,  no,  it  is  not  true — Fernan,  that 
is  like  a  brother  to  me  !    Mamma,  oh,  mamma. 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I7I 

forget  what  I  said !  I  think  I  am  crazy.'  My 
poor  Alfredo  dropped  his  head  upon  his  knees, 
burying  his  face  in  my  draperies.  I  was  about 
to  ring  for  Marianna  to  bring  a  cup  of  tea  of 
mallow  leaves  for  Count  Alfredo,  when  was 
heard  the  voice  of  Fernan,  returned  from  his 
ride,  in  the  courtyard  below  as^he  gave  his 
horse  in  charge  to  a  groom. 

"  '  Fernan  !  Fernan  ! '  cried  Alfredo,  starting 
to  his  feet,  '  come  here;  let  me  embrace  you.' 

"  '  Hush  ! '  said  I;  '  do  not  call  your  cousin. 
What  reason  would  you  give  for  this  great 
rush  of  tenderness  ?  What  would  he  imag- 
ine.?' 

" '  You  are  right,  mamma,'  answered  my 
son,  with  a  tense  voice;  'there  is  probably  no 
reason  that  I  should  love  Fernan  more  or  less 
than  usual.' 

"  Then  Emily's  slow  step,  in  pathetic  con- 
trast to  the  gay  tinkle  of  her  beads  and  ban- 
gles, was  heard  in  the  corridor.  Alfredo  sub- 
dued his  passion  with  an  instantaneous  change, 
surprising  even  in  a  man  of  southern  Italy,  and 
hastened  to  meet  his  little  love. 


172  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

"So, day  by  day, our  sad  little  drama  played 
itself.  I  confess,  uncle  Onofrio,  that  I  admired 
the  self-command  of  my  son.  No  change  in 
the  relations  between  him  and  his  cousin  was 
perceptible,  even  to  me  who  knew  the  affair 
from  the  interior.  Only  once,  when  Fernan 
was  coaxing,  Emily  to  accept  his  bonbons, 
Alfredo  said  quietly,  '  I  think  she  does  not 
care  for  any  at  the  moment.'  Immediately  the 
capricious  Emily  declared  she  would  have  a 
marron  glae,  and  then  decided  to  toss  it  to  my 
little  dog.  Alfredo  watched  the  animal  play 
with  the  bonbon  and  begin  to  eat  it.  '  Will  it 
hurt  him.-*'  asked  Emily;  and  my  son,  look- 
ing straight  at  Fernan  de  Alvares,  answered 
lightly  enough,  'Oh  no,  one  bonbon  will  not 
finish  him.'  A  few  moments  later  Alfredo, 
as  if  to  make  reparation,  clasped  the  hand  of 
his  cousin,  apropos  of  little  or  nothing.  Fernan 
appeared  to  remark  neither  coldness  nor  fervor. 

"At  last  I  became  desperate.  I  wrote  to 
Miss  Anastasia  Colburn,  begging  her  to  leave 
her  anatomical  lectures  and  come  straight  to 
Naples,  to  use  every  resource  of  her   knowi- 


PRINCESS  HUMMING-BIRp  173 

edge  to  save  the  life  of  her  niece  and  the  hap- 
piness, perhaps  even  the  reason,  of  my  son. 
She  came  without  delay.  It  is  certain  that 
there  were  tears  behind  her  eye-glasses  when 
I  met  her  at  the  railway  station;  and  if  one 
could  be  sure  of  the  curious  American  intona- 
tions, I  should  say  that  her  voice  quivered  and 
nearly  broke  more  than  once  as,  during  the 
drive  to  my  house,  we  spoke  of  poor  little 
Emily.  But  at  the  side  of  the  invalid  she  was 
all  the  dottoressa.  Emily,  in  those  days,  more 
than  ever  attached  to  her  humming-birds, 
wore  the  mantle  of  feathers  over  whatever  cos- 
tume. She  said  that  she  felt  chilly,  and  noth- 
ing was  so  warm  as  those  soft  plumes.  Alfre- 
do had  ceased  to  pity  the  quenched  existence 
of  the  birds,  while  a  life  like  theirs,  brilliant, 
volatile,  innocent,  was  being  destroyed  by  an 
unknown  force  as  viewless  as  the  shafts  of  the 
air-gun  that  had  been  their  death. 

"Miss  Anastasia  entered  the  room  where 
Emily  sat  by  a  window  with  Alfredo  at  her 
side.  Fernan,  near  a  low  table,  was  busy  in 
arranging  a  bouquet  of  white  roses.    Marianna, 


174  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

in  the  anteroom,  knitted  industriously.  Miss 
Anastasia  spoke:  'My  much-esteemed-and- 
by-no-means-to-be-contradicted  colleague  was 
right'  (the  woman  had  added  some  curious 
German  constructions  to  her  idiom  of  the 
United  States);  'arsenic  poison  is  indicated.' 
Emily  screamed;  Alfredo  started  to  his  feet, 
rushed  at  his  cousin  Fernan,  and  finished  by 
handing  to  him  the  ball  of  thread  for  tying  the 
roses,  which  was  fallen  to  the  floor.  '  And  the 
poisoner  is  right  here,'  continued  Miss  Anas- 
tasia. I  dreaded  to  hear  her  next  words.  '  It 
is  that  ridiculous  mantle  and  bodice  and  hat, 
and  all  made  of  poor  little  corpses  embalmed 
with  arsenic.  Take  off  the  mantle  this  minute, 
and  let  the  maid  take  it  and  burn  it  up,  Emily. 
I  always  thought  those  birds  were  a  piece  of 
folly  and  wickedness,  but  it  was  no  use  to  say 
mi^ch,  for  Emily  always  has  had  her  own  way. 
I'm  a  consistent  member  oi"  the  Society  for  the 
Prevention  of  Cruelty  to  Animals,  and  I  hate 
to  see  a  woman  wear  stuffed  birds.  And  an 
impalpable  pulverization  of  arsenic  is  not  good 
to  breathe.     I  shall  exhibit  the  proper  reme- 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  I75 

dies;  and  oh,  my  little  Emily,  you  will  get 
well  again  for  poor  old  aunty,  won't  you  ? '  fin- 
ished the  good  Anastasia,  with  a  gush  of 
womanly  tears  that  seemed  capable  of  making 
blossom  the  arid  parchment  of  her  medical 
diploma. 

"  There  was  a  moment  of  emotional  silence. 
My  Alfredo,  with  one  hand  clasping  the  fin- 
gers of  his  little  love,  took  with  the  other  the 
capable  hand  of  Miss  Anastasia.  Then  the 
dottoressa  recovered  her  professional  self. 
'Just  like  a  man!'  she  exclaimed.  'Why 
couldn't  that  English  quack  (no  longer  her 
much-esteemed,  etc.)  see  what  the  trouble  was, 
and  do  something .''  I  may  as  well  say  it  as 
think  it — there  are  enough  physicians  expert 
in  diagnosis,  but  when  it  comes  to  special  ther- 
apeutics, my  little  Emily,  there's  nobody  bet- 
ter than  your  old  aunty.' 

"Miss  Anastasia  took  off  her  eye-glasses 
and  wiped  them  vindictively.  Then  she  turned 
to  Alfredo.  'I  am  surprised  at  you,  young 
man,  for  agitating  the  patient.'  My  poor  boy 
had  in  his  eyes  two  great  tears  which  were  not 


176  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

permitted  to  fall.  '  I  see  no  reason  to  worry,' 
declared  the  good  Anastasia.  '  My  niece  will 
soon  be  as  bright  and  well  as  ever;  and  I  guess 
the  experience  will  have  taught  her  not  to  be 
so  set  on  her  own  way.  I  know  you  have  felt 
with  me,  Alfredo,  about  these  poor  little  birds, 
and  I  like  you  for  it.  If  Emily  had  any  judg- 
ment she  would  have  seen  that  you  were  right 
and  she  was  wrong.' 

"  *  As  you  always  are,'  said  Emily,  equivo- 
cally; but  Alfredo  kissed  her  hand  in  good  faith. 

"'You  will  have  to  tutor  her  a  little,' re- 
marked Miss  Anastasia.  Then  she  gave  a 
benevolent  glance  above  her  eye-glasses,  com- 
prehending in  it  Fernan  and  myself. 

'"Yes,  she  will  do  well  now,  no  fear,'  pro- 
nounced this  light  of  the  profession,  this 
Minerva  Medica  of  Boston,  Massachusetts, 
United  States  of  America. 

"  I  looked  at  Fernan  de  Alvares.  His  sol- 
emn Spanish  eyes  were  brilliant  with  unselfish 
rapture.  My  Alfredo  caught  sight  of  those 
eyes;  leaving  Emily,  he  ran  to  embrace  Fer- 
nan.    'My   cousin,  my   brother,'    he   said,    'I 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  177 

thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  sharing  in  my 
happiness.' 

*'  Our  troubles  were  ended.  In  the  course 
of  a  few  days  the  treatment  of  Miss  Anastasia 
had  visibly  benefited  her  niece;  and  the  bodies 
of  the  humming-birds,  solemnly  cremated  by 
Marianna,  went,  we  may  hope,  to  meet  their 
tiny  ghosts  in  an  Elysium  of  flowers  and  flight. 
You  may  imagine.  Uncle  Onofrio,  whether  we, 
especially  Alfredo,  were  lavish  in  joyous  atten- 
tions to  Emily.  But  would  you  credit  it  ?  I 
had  a  thirteenth  task  of  Hercules  to  prevent 
my  absurd  son  from  confessing  to  Fernan  de 
Alvares  his  sinister  and  morbid  suspicions ! 
'A  fine  compliment,  truly,  to  your  cousin,'  said 
I.  '  How  would  you  phrase  it .''  For  instance,  "I 
thought  you  capable  of  murdering,  for  motives 
of  family  pride,  the  young  girl  who  is  to  be  my 
wife,"  or,  better,  "I  believed  you  a  Borgia,  and 
you  are  the  friend  of  my  soul ! "  Oh,  I  assure 
you,  your  cousin  will  hardly  feel  grateful  to 
you  for  such  extreme  frankness  ! ' " 

"Who  excuses,  accuses  himself,"  remarked 
the  Marquis  Onofrio. 


178  PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD 

"  Finally  my  son  let  himself  be  persuaded — 
ah,  uncle,  I  hear  carriage-wheels;  the  young 
people,  with  Miss  Anastasia,  have  been  driv- 
ing. You  shall  see  now  for  yourself  how 
happy  my  son  is." 

Gay  voices  sounded  upon  the  staircase.  The 
door  opened,  and  the  spirit  of  the  brilliant, 
laughing  Neapolitan  springtime  seemed  to 
enter  the  discreet,  artificial  shadow  of  the 
room  where  sat  the  Marquis  Onofrio  and  the 
Countess  Antonietta.  The  beauty  of  Emily 
quite  dazzled  the  elderly  man  of  the  world — 
he  that  had  appraised  the  charms  of  the  fair 
women  of  half  a  century  of  society.  Emily, 
conscious  but  not  at  all  disconcerted,  stood 
like  a  bird  just  alighted,  all  sparkle  and  vibrat- 
ing grace. 

"  I  kiss  the  hand  of  her  Highness,  the  Prin- 
cess Humming-bird,"  said  the  gallant  old 
Marquis,  bowing  over  the  little  fingers.  He 
was  also  presented  to  Miss  Anastasia  Colburn, 
to  whom  he  addressed  amiable  compliments. 

"  I  am  pleased  to  make  your  acquaintance, 
sir,"  said  she,  with  much  precision. 


PRINCESS   HUMMING-BIRD  179 

'*  Where  is  Fernan,  that  he  did  not  return 
with  you  ? "  asked  the  Countess  Antonietta. 

"  Oh,  he  met  the  Contessina  Sofia  and  her 
mamma !  "  answered  Emily,  with  her  soft, 
tinkling  laugh. 

"  I  understand,"  said  the  Countess  to  herself. 
"  I  shall  soon  be  invited  to  complete,  on  be- 
half of  Fernan  de  Alvares,  those  phrases 
which  I  began  to  speak  for  my  son  to  the 
mamma  of  Sofia — the  phrases  interrupted  by 
the  appearance  of  Princess  Humming-bird  ! " 


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of  about  200  pages.  This  volume  contains  the  poems 
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in  the  novel  "  A  Fellowe  and  His  Wife,"  has  made  his 
name  familiar  to  American  readers.  As  one  of  the  most 
popular  of  the  yoimger  English  poets,  we  anticipate  an 
equal  success  in  America  for  "  Flower  o'  the  Vine,"  for 
which  Mr.  Thomas  A.  Janvier  has  prepared  an  Intro- 
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S.  L.  M.  Byers.  The  Happy  Isles,  and  Other  Poems. 
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t 


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